The Bund Naturschutz (BN) has asked Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) to withdraw the controversial Bavarian wolf ordinance. “The legal opinion of the Bundestag shows very clearly that the regulation breaks German and European law,” said BN boss Richard Mergner. “If Söder now takes the consequences and collects them, we will not go to court.” At the same time, Mergner offered the state government and the alpine farmers a “new dialogue about effective herd protection”.
Söder said on Monday that if there were any complaints about the wolf ordinance, “we will take a close look at the judgments and, if in doubt, we will then introduce appropriately adapted ordinances”. The wolf ordinance came into force only two weeks ago and is intended to make it easier to kill the strictly protected predators. The BN has already decided to take legal action.
The report of the scientific service of the Bundestag comes to the conclusion that the regulation contradicts German and European law in several respects. Wolves are strictly protected, the experts state, they may only be shot in absolute exceptions, as a “last resort” when all other preventive and protective measures have failed.
According to the Wolf Ordinance, wolves may be shot in Bavaria since May 1st as soon as they kill a grazing animal. According to the report, this is “basically not compatible” with European species protection regulations. According to the experts, even under German nature conservation law, a livestock kill is not sufficient to justify the shooting of a wolf. Because in the relevant passage of the Nature Conservation Act, there is talk of “damage caused by livestock tears” and “tear events that have already occurred”.
From the experts’ point of view, some of the criteria in the new ordinance for assessing the alleged dangerousness of a wolf are also untenable. According to the EU Commission, killing a wolf is only indicated if it repeatedly approaches people at a distance of less than 30 meters of its own accord or attacks or injures people unprovoked. The Bavarian wolf ordinance already allows a wolf to be shot “for several days within a radius of less than 200 m from built-up areas or from buildings or stables used by people”.
According to the chairman of the FDP in the Bundestag, Christian Dürr, the parliamentary lawyers certify Söder that he is “a loudmouth”. The report was commissioned by Dürr’s faction. It makes it clear that “only the federal government can create a legally secure solution for dealing with wolves,” said the Liberal and announced that the federal government would present a nationwide regulation by summer.