Can the wolf be shot down soon in Germany?

How do you deal with the growing stock of wolves in Germany? The Federal Council calls on the Federal Government to create the legal requirements for a faster shooting of the previously strictly protected animals. The increasing number of wolves in Germany leads “to persistence”, according to a resolution made on Friday. The advance serves the better protection of pasture animals such as goats and sheep.

There is therefore “urgent additional need for action to make the management of local wolf stocks more flexible in the future”. The submission of Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had been introduced. Through these federal states and Lower Saxony, the most wolves in Germany roam according to official data.

The state chamber demands that national changes in the law. According to changes in the protection status of the wolf at EU level, the prerequisites for a regionally differentiated “inventory management” of the animals should be created.

In the so -called Bern Convention – an international law contract of the Council of Europe – the protection status of the wolf in December was downgraded from “strictly protected” to “protected”. This basically created the prerequisite for a faster shooting of wolves.

The wolf is a very emotional topic. While conservationists celebrate the spread of animals, cases always make headlines where farm animals are torn. A very special incident with a wolf also attracted special attention at the end of 2022: At that time such a predator tore a pony by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, which was then placed in a pasture unprotected. Since then, the politician, who comes from Lower Saxony, has not been easy to speak to the animals.

There has been a rethink on the subject of wolf at the European level, it is now also said in the resolution of the country chamber. The Federal Government should now work in Brussels for a quick adjustment of protection status in the existing nature conservation directive of the European Union, which is currently still prohibiting hunting from wolves.

The federal government is also asked by the federal states to prepare the necessary national legal changes in order to include the wolf into hunting law nationwide. The government should also create regulations to limit damage caused by wolves in livestock farming to a compatible level.

Since the turn of the millennium, the once rotted wolves have spread back in Germany. According to the nature conservation association Nabu, the first wolf puppies in the wild in 2000 were born in 2000 – in Oberlausitz in Saxony. In the meantime, the animals in Germany are most common in northeast Germany. According to estimates, a total of 209 wolf packs in the Federal Republic and also 46 pairs and 19 sedentary individual animals live. A pack is a wolf family and consists of parents and the youngsters of two years.

The nature conservation organization WWF expressed sharp criticism of the resolution of the Federal Council. “This application serves the zeitgeist of populism. It is a fallacy that the Wolf Weidetier conflicts can be solved with the shotgun,” said Sybille Klenzendorf, WWF program manager for wildlife Germany and Europe.

The most effective means of reducing livestock cracks is an effective herd protection, explained Klenzendorf. The federal states would have to invest in a targeted manner in the support of grazing animals “to minimize conflicts with wolves instead of setting on undifferentiated hunt that only tightens the problem”.

However, the state demands are supported by the expected future federal government from the Union and SPD. According to the coalition agreement, these want to implement the downgrading of the wolf protection status “immediately” into national law. In addition, the Federal Nature Conservation Act “should be changed for a legally secure removal of wolves” and the wolf is “immediately” included in the right of hunting law.

The Union conversory expert Anja Weisgerber (CSU) said: “We also have to hunt the wolf in Germany so that we can keep the stocks small.” He should be included in the hunting law.