EU votes to lower protections for wolves

Brussels: After having come back from the brink of disappearing from Europe under strict protection rules, wolves are now facing the loss of some of their protections within the bloc.

Wolves have been a "strictly protected" species in the EU since 1979, but EU member states on Wednesday voted to downgrade this to simply "protected."

The change will see a relaxation of the tight hunting rules and comes after complaints by farmers that the growing number of wolves was impacting their livestock.

EU chief loses pony to wolf attack
The total population of wolves in the EU was estimated to be around 20,300 in 2023, with breeding packs present in 23 countries.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen announced last year that the protections would be reviewed, saying the "concentration of wolf packs in some European regions has become a real danger, especially for livestock."

The issue may well be a personal one for von der Leyen. Her own pony Dolly was mauled to death by a wolf on her family's rural property in Germany two years ago.

Regarding Wednesday's vote, German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke said it was "justifiable from a nature conservation perspective and necessary from the point of view of livestock farmers."

Wolf attacks minimal, EU report finds
However, environmental groups have protested against the decision, saying that while wolf numbers had indeed bounced back, populations had not yet fully recovered.

"We see this as a proposal that is politically motivated and not at all based on science," Sabien Leemans, senior policy officer at environmental group WWF, told the AFP news agency.

A letter signed by some 300 environmental groups argued that there was no evidence that reducing the number of wolves through hunting would have any impact on attacks on livestock.

A similar conclusion was reached by an EU report in 2023, which found that only 0.065% of the bloc's sheep population had been killed by wolves and that there had been no reports of fatal wolf attacks on humans for 40 years.