The native Irish wolf died out around 250 years ago.
Around 250 years ago the last native Irish wolf in the wild was killed, and their distinctive howls fell silent after thousands of years.
But now a quarter of a millennium later a campaign is calling for wolves to be reintroduced to Ireland.
Earlier in the year, Wexford TD Mick Wallace raised the topic to the Department of Heritage.
And Campaigning Officer for the Irish Wildlife Trust, Padraig Fogarty, says bringing them back would have a range of benefits:
''It's always a good thing to bring animals back that we have driven to extinction'', he said.
''From an ecological point of view, it's been seen as an enormous success.''
You've no chance hardly of seeing a wold, but to walk in a mountain where you know wolves are out there is an absolutely magical experience.''
Backers of the idea say the presence of an apex predator can have a massively beneficial trickle-down effect on an ecosystem – as documented in Yellowstone in the US, where wolves were brought back in the mid-1990s, reports the Journal.ie.
And Ireland has history when it comes to reintroducing predators back into an environment, total of 100 white-tailed eagles were released in Killarney National Park from the mid-2000s, while Donegal saw more than 60 golden eagles released between 2001 and 2012.
