Wolves have made a “remarkable” comeback across Europe, a report has found.

After centuries of being trapped, shot, poisoned and maligned, in the past decade the wolf population has increased by 58 per cent, which means that there are now more than 21,500 in the continent’s woods, mountains and, increasingly, towns and cities.

The report found that wolf populations have increased in 19 countries, from Austria and Belgium to Italy, France, Germany and Eastern Europe.

The trend is all the more surprising “because Europe appears at first as an unlikely place for a large carnivore to recover”, the report said, given that the continent is intensively farmed, heavily urbanised and home to about 450 million people.

Wolves have expanded their range so dramatically over the past 10 years that there are only three countries in continental Europe where they cannot be found – the microstates of San Marino, Monaco and the Vatican City.

Europe’s ability to co-exist with such a large predatory mammal “could provide relevant insights for the conservation of many other species worldwide in the 21st century”, the report said, hailing their population growth as a “notable conservation success”.