STEFFEN Butzeck revs the engine of his little Ford to clear the deep ruts in the sandy forest track, keeping one eye out for unexploded Soviet-era ordnance and the other for wolves' paw prints or droppings.
"This is perfect wolf territory," he says when he kills the motor and surveys the landscape. "Very peaceful. No people."
There are no people for good reason: the thickly wooded area Mr Butzeck patrols, 100km south-west of Berlin in a region called
the Spreewald, is an old Russian military training ground, littered with rusted bombs and landmines.
Signs deter the tourists who flock to a nearby Unesco-listed biosphere, leaving the abandoned military ground as a perfect habitat for another kind of visitor – the wolves who have established a fragile paw-hold on the land for the first time in 200 years.
From medieval times, the feared wolf was hunted in Germany and finally driven out in the 19th century, when the last few packs retreated eastwards into the more remote forests of Poland, the Caucuses and Russia. Now, it is back.
A pair of adults, one male and one female, roam the old military ground. So far they don't appear to have produced cubs, but Mr Butzeck is watching in anticipation.
Further south, in Saxony, at least four packs – each with two parents and up to eight cubs – roam an active military training area, dodging explosions and tanks.
Ironically, it seems to be the safest place for them.
The return of Canis lupus from across the Polish border has made scientists giddy with excitement.
Mr Butzeck, who manages the biosphere for the Brandenburg state government and has a special interest in wolves, said: "It excites the wilderness deep inside everyone.
"We have lost this from our lives; people have become sleepy in their souls, but the wolf brings a little bit of fear and reminds us that beyond our limits is the greatness of nature."
Though Germany's wolf population is probably just 40 or fewer, the country's leading wolf expert, biologist Ilka Reinhardt, is optimistic that it will grow and continue to creep westward.
Ms Reinhardt, who monitors the population in Saxony, said: "They have a good chance of recovering and thriving here if we give them the chance. It's a good start."
She also advises sheep farmers on how to protect their flocks.
Ms Reinhardt says the wolves in Saxony killed 57 sheep last year, and farmers angry about attacks on their livestock have paid hunters to kill the predators.
Farmers are compensated for losses by the federal government and are subsidised for improvements to their fences.
Many still grumble, but most are prepared to accept the return of the wolves, she said.
Last year, two hunters in Saxony were fined 10,000 and 4,000 respectively for shooting a wolf, and are challenging the fines in court. In the Spreewald area, a forester found a young wolf killed by a bullet. Under Ms Reinhardt's supervision, the body was taken to Berlin and studied by police ballistics experts.
They failed to identify the make of weapon, but the effort taken shows the importance authorities attach to stamping out such illegal hunting.
A hunting lobby group, Security and Species Protection, argues that wolf numbers could get out of hand and that they pose a danger to people. Their campaign has been picked up by tabloid papers, one of which, Bild, has recently run headlines including "Shoot the Lausitzer wolves!" (referring to the region straddling Brandenburg and Saxony where the wolves live) and "We won't live in fear any more!" But the biologists say the papers are whipping up hysteria. Polls suggest most Germans are happy about the return of wolves as evidence that the natural environment is thriving, says Mr Butzeck.
"Some newspapers write things like, 'They will eat your children'," he says, shaking his head.
"Germans always need to be fearful of something. The question is, do we deserve wolves? I'm not always sure we do."
The full article contains 679 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
