The wolf is an animal that arouses emotions. The fear of the big bad wolf, as he is described in numerous fairy tales from “Little Red Riding Hood” to “The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids”, runs deep. That’s exactly why the animal is a target, so to speak, for politicians who need to polish up their image for some reason or who are in election campaign mode.
Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, was probably very aware of all of this when she called at the end of last year to lower the protection status of the wolf in the EU and thereby make it easier to shoot the currently strictly protected animal. After all, the European elections are coming up in 2024. Personal concern may also have played a role: just over a year ago, Dolly, a pony belonging to the von der Leyen family, was killed by a wolf in the pasture.
This is terrible, no question. Sheep being mauled by wolves is also a terrible sight. Nevertheless, it makes no sense to call for wolf hunting every time after such – rare – incidents: neither politically, biologically nor ethically.
Politically, the legal situation in both Germany and the EU already allows wolves that have killed livestock to be killed. The prerequisite is that the grazing animals were protected, for example by a wolf-proof fence. Where this is not possible, such as on some Bavarian mountain pastures, “problem wolves” can also be shot.
Anyone who only wants to protect animals that don’t bother people has understood nothing
In addition, in practice it is almost impossible to lower the protection status of the wolf in the Fauna-Flora-Habitat Directive, or FFH Directive for short, as Ursula von der Leyen demanded. One of the many political obstacles is that the EU cannot decide on this alone. The Habitats Directive is based on the so-called Berne Convention with 51 signatory states, all of which would have to agree.
For biological reasons, sheep, goats and ponies would not be better protected if hunting of wolves were permitted. The predators travel up to 70 kilometers in a single night. Wolves that have struck in a pasture are usually all over the mountains until the people have sorted themselves out. There are many examples for this. The “Chiemgau problem wolf”, for example, which killed grazing animals in Bavaria almost exactly two years ago, was run over by a car in the Czech Republic just a few days later – 350 kilometers from the crime scene.
If one were to allow the hunting of wolves in principle, it would almost always target the wrong people – animals that have done nothing wrong and are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The best protection is therefore not to shoot the wolves, but to protect the herds.
Ethically, the demand for a blanket hunting permit for wolves reflects an anachronistic understanding of nature, according to which only animals that benefit humans or at least do not disturb them are worthy of protection. It is precisely this attitude that has triggered the current biodiversity crisis, which is just as dangerous as climate change. It is also clear that in order to be able to stop the global extinction of species, nature as a whole must be protected. The wolf is part of it.