The wolves with the slightest inborn recklessness are quickly removed from the population, the survivors being wolves who can outwit their persecutors. Such non-natural selection may be why Italian wolves are smaller than their American or Russian cousins, less dependent on cooperative hunting, and much less picky about their diet. I have seen photographs of Italian garbage-can raiders with their fierce mouths trailing strands of spaghetti. In the fourteenth century, wolves dug up the shallow graves of European plague victims. In the Middle East, wolves cower outside the towns, stoned by boys, with little more than the occasional outcast dog for a square meal.
Wolves are survivors.
If in a given patch of habitat there is enough prey to feed only one wolf, one Italian wolf will live there alone. Large packs are rare. Howling is rare. The modem Italian wolf can be as furtive, skulking, and cunning as the ancient wolf of legend. There are wolves in Italy from the heel of the boot to the Alps.