Hello and welcome to Stories of Scotland, a podcast about the history, nature and folklore of Scotland.

I'm Jenny, an apex predator. And I'm Annie, a happy herbivore. Well then, you had better watch

your back, Annie, because in this episode, we are going in search of the ultimate happy herbivore

hunter, the wolf. Oh no. Oh yes. For as far back as there have been humans on this land, there have also been wolves.

The grey wolf was once common in Scotland and all of the British Isles.

But the last stronghold for the wolf was Sutherland,

a large area of land that covers much of the Scottish Highlands stretching from coast to coast.

And so we're going to explore Sutherland in search of the once-mighty wolf.

Well that's exceptionally handy because Sutherland is another underrepresented area on our

interactive stories map, which shows the locations that we've talked about in each of our

episodes. This series, we're exploring the places we have so far missed, and Sutherland is

definitely lacking. What a coincidence. You can visit our stories map on our website and explore

Scotland in a whole new way.

Whilst wolves are still found in the heavily forested areas of Europe today,

they have been extinct in Scotland for many centuries.

But to understand the story of the wolf in Scotland,

we have to travel back in time to when wolves were not only common, but the rulers of this land.

At the end of the last Ice Age, around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, the great ice sheets that covered all of Scotland slowly receded, and in their wake, life followed.

Over thousands of years, the scoured barren landscape was gradually transformed.

First lichens spread across the rocks, breaking them down and creating an incredibly thin soil.

But all it takes is a little soil and boom, soon there's grasses, shrubs, and hey, even little trees start to take root.

Hello baby trees.

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