In Eastern Europe, wolves were never fully exterminated, due to the area's contiguity with Asia and its large forested areas. However, Eastern European wolf populations were reduced to very low numbers by the late nineteenth century. Wolves were extirpated in Upper Hungary during the first decade of the twentieth century and, by the mid-twentieth century, could be found only in a few forested areas in eastern Poland. Wolves in the eastern Balkans benefitted from the region's contiguity with the former Soviet Union and large areas of plains, mountains and farmlands. Wolves in Hungary occurred in only half the country around the start of the 20th century, and were largely restricted to the Carpathian Basin. Wolf populations in Romania remained largely substantial, with an average of 2,800 wolves being killed annually out of a population of 4,600 from 1955–1965. An all-time low was reached in 1967, when the population was reduced to 1,550 animals. The extermination of wolves in Bulgaria was relatively recent, as a previous population of about 1,000 animals in 1955 was reduced to about 100–200 in 1964. In Greece, the species disappeared from the southern Peloponnese in 1930. Despite periods of intense hunting during the eighteenth century, wolves never disappeared in the western Balkans, from Albania to the former Yugoslavia. Organized persecution of wolves began in Yugoslavia in 1923, with the setting up of the Wolf Extermination Committee in Kočevje, Slovenia. The committee was successful in reducing wolf numbers in the Dinaric Alps.