The Bavarian Prime Minister plans to make it easier to remove the predators in the future. However, there is a problem: If the federal government does not cooperate, the Free State has little recourse.
Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) has spoken out in favor of taking tougher action against predators, especially wolves, which are spreading in the Alpine region. For this Tuesday, Söder announced a cabinet decision with the aim of “making the removal easier,” as he said on Monday after a video call by the CSU party executive. In other words: the state government wants to ensure that the wolf can be shot down more quickly in the future. Söder did not give any further details. In general, it is questionable how he intends to implement his plan, because according to EU and federal law, wolves are among the most strictly protected animals – and Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens) refuses to soften the wolf protection.
So far, wolves may only be shot in clearly defined exceptions, for example if a certain animal poses an acute danger to human life and limb. Flat-rate kills or wolf-free areas, such as those demanded by alpine farmers, are not possible. Not only Prime Minister Söder is bothered by this, but also Environment Minister Thorsten Faithr (free voters) had recently pleaded “for efficient wolf management”. As long as there is no way to shoot down wolves that attack livestock on the mountain pastures, “we will never get the farmers to tolerate the return of the wolves,” said Glauber.
For Prime Minister Söder, the wolf is now so widespread that “if we don’t draw a clear line now, there would be great dangers”, including for humans. According to the State Office for the Environment (LfU), there are now seven areas in the Free State in which a total of around two dozen wolves have been detected over several months. In the Altmühltal, in the Bavarian Forest, in the Veldensteiner and Manteler Forst, at the Grafenwöhr military training area, in the Rhön and finally in the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. However, the number of attacks by wolves on sheep, goats and other farm animals is manageable. There have been no attacks on people in Germany since the wolves reappeared.