Merlin the wolf, housed in the wildlife center of Castelsantangelo sul Nera, died at the age of 13 and a half: having survived the 2016 earthquake, which hit the south of the Marche region, he had become “the symbol of hope and resistance of the Sibillini Mountains “, recalled the president of the Sibillini National Park, Andrea Spaterna.
In 2009, he was saved from certain death by Massimo Dell’Orso, guardian of the animals of the Park, together with the vets Noemi Orazi and Monica Ferrari: he was a puppy abandoned by his pack and was found, very thin and exhausted due to a serious form of mange, near Cascia (Perugia).
Two books have also been written about Merlin (‘The Night of Dust’, co-written by Massimo Dell’Orso and Maria Cristina Garofalo, and ‘The Lands of Crystal’). The man who saved him and took care of him gave him the name Merlin: “He hid so well that I couldn’t see him. Then, suddenly, he appeared as if by magic”, Dell’Orso said of him , who died prematurely in 2018.
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