Rare black wolves have been captured crossing a stream in Poland, marking the first time that black wolves have ever been filmed in the country.

Recorded on a camera trap that was originally set up to record beavers by the conservation charity SAVE Wildlife Conservation Fund Poland, the footage shows first a clip of one gray wolf and one black wolf fording the stream, and a second clip of two black wolves and a gray wolf later crossing the same stream.

According to Channel 4 News, black wolves have been rumored to exist but the stories about them were attributed to local folklore. 

During the 1950s, wolves in Poland were all but extinct, however in 1998, a nationwide ban on wolf hunting was rolled out in Poland, helping the population begin to recover. 

Recent research has found that Poland’s wolves are now mobile, crossing borders into neighboring countries like Russia and Slovakia. It is now estimated that around 2,000 wolves roam in and around Poland. 

In Yellowstone, the reintroduction of wolves in the 1990s has literally changed the landscape in a phenomenon known as a trophic cascade. According to a 2022 study, while black wolves are rare around the world, nearly half the wolves in Yellowstone are black. 

The two black wolves in Poland are likely siblings and roughly a year old. Given the footage, the charity now wants to raise money to collect and analyze droppings from the pair to find out more about their DNA and genetics. 

It is thought that the black color comes from a mutation in domestic dogs bred with wolves thousands of years ago. The organization explained in a Facebook post that most of the wolves in Poland are gray with reddish or black accents. “Black and grey ones [wolves] are the same species,” Joanna Toczydłowska, project coordinator for SAVE Wildlife Conservation Fund Poland, told Newsweek.

Genetic conditions that affect an animal’s appearance are relatively common, they can result in all black individuals like this melanistic king penguin, or even turn some species white.