Animals
Around a dozen wolves were killed in Austria in 2023
An adult female wolf. The animals, which are actually particularly protected by the EU’s Fauna-Flora-Habitat Directive, were hunted particularly intensively in Tyrol and Carinthia. photo
© Christian Charisius/dpa
In Germany, it should be possible to kill individual wolves more quickly. Austria has already taken such a step: the hunt for protected animals has been made much easier.
The hurdles for hunting have been lowered in Austria Wolves have noticeably decimated the population. This year, around a dozen wolves were killed, according to the Austrian Bear, Wolf, Lynx Center. The animals were considered so-called risk or damaging wolves. Albin Blaschka from the Austrian Center estimates that a total of around 80 wolves were on the move in the Alpine republic this year, at least temporarily.
The animals, which are actually particularly protected by the EU’s Fauna-Flora-Habitat Directive, were hunted particularly intensively in Tyrol and Carinthia. According to the authorities, the aim is to protect grazing animals, but sometimes wolves have come too close to settlements. In Tyrol alone, around 200,000 cattle, sheep, goats and horses are driven to the mountain pastures every year, where they spend the warm season.
Legal hurdles reduced
According to a survey by the APA news agency among the federal states, the number of sheep and goats killed this alpine season has decreased significantly. According to the federal states, 394 farm animals have fallen victim to wolves so far this year; according to official statistics, there were 791 in the previous year. Whether this is related to hunting cannot yet be answered, said Blaschka. Six out of nine federal states in Austria have recently lowered the shooting hurdles or have initiated the corresponding procedures.
In April, the Tyrolean state parliament passed an amendment to the law that now allows killing by ordinance and no longer by notice. Such decisions have been overturned by the courts several times after environmental organizations successfully appealed.
Easier launches are also planned in Germany
In Germany, Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens) wants to enable faster shooting of individual wolves. Specifically, Lemke’s proposal stipulates that the federal states designate certain regions with an increased number of attacks by wolves. If a wolf has overcome reasonable protective measures such as a fence and killed a grazing animal, it should be allowed to shoot at it for 21 days with an exception – within a radius of 1000 meters from the pasture. Unlike before, it will not be necessary to wait for a DNA analysis to clearly identify the wolf. Praise for Lemke’s proposal came from environmental associations, but criticism came from the Union and the farmers’ association, which consider a general reduction in the wolf population to be necessary.
According to the federal documentation and advisory center on wolves (DBBW), there were 184 wolf packs, 47 wolf pairs and 22 sedentary individual wolves in Germany in 2022/2023 – a total of “1339 wolf individuals”. Most wolf families live in Brandenburg (52), Lower Saxony (39) and Saxony (38).
Peaceful coexistence possible?
The Austrian “Association against Animal Factories” believes that peaceful coexistence with wolves is also possible in Alpine terrain. With shepherds, the alpine animals would not only be better protected from predators, but above all from falls, storms or illness. Instead of protecting the herds on the mountain pastures with staff or fences, there is “pointless shooting” in Austria, according to the association.
Before shooting, you usually have to try to scare the wolf away using other means. In Carinthia alone there were 170 such scares, the state told the APA. In total, the Austrian Center assumes that eight packs are native to the country. “We are at best in the initial phase of settlement,” says Blaschka.
VGT about the wolf distribution map Wolf WWF about wolves in Germany