The animal, which had been released for shooting by the government of Upper Bavaria in mid-January, was fatally injured in an accident shortly after this decision – more than 300 kilometers from the Upper Bavarian Alps.
The wolf, temporarily released by the Bavarian authorities for shooting, which killed some sheep, goats and wild animals on the edge of the Upper Bavarian Alps at the end of last year, was run over near the Czech city of Brno in mid-January. This was announced by the Bavarian State Office for the Environment on Wednesday. Accordingly, the animal, named after its genetic code GW2425m and now clearly identified, was found run over on January 17 near Prostějov northeast of Brno – just on the day on which the controversial exemption from the government of Upper Bavaria for the shooting of the wolf was granted had come into effect.
The government justified its order by saying that the wolf also posed a potential danger to people in the region. Animal rights activists vehemently disagreed. The Bund Naturschutz and the Society for the Protection of Wolves appealed to the Munich Administrative Court with urgent applications, which classified the shooting license as presumably illegal and canceled it after just a few days until further notice. On the other hand, the government has lodged a complaint with the Administrative Court. According to a spokesman for the VGH, it now depends on how both sides deal with the new situation. It would be usual to withdraw all applications, which would have settled the legal dispute.
According to a spokesman on Wednesday, the government of Upper Bavaria is considering repealing its decision. No decision has yet been made within the Federal Nature Conservation Agency on how to proceed. In view of the comparatively clear announcement by the first instance, the plaintiffs could hope to bring about a court decision with a signal effect. In his own words, BN wolf expert Uwe Friedel had hoped for “an exclamation mark” that “Bavaria also has to comply with federal nature conservation law”. Because wolves are under strict species protection, approved kills are extremely rare in other federal states with significantly larger wolf populations.
In Bavaria, the dispute over GW2425m could have set a precedent. Farmers’ representatives and numerous local politicians called for it to be shot down, Minister of Agriculture Michaela Kaniber (CSU) and Minister of the Environment Thorsten Faithr (FW) supported the corresponding application by the Traunstein District Administrator Siegfried Walch (CSU).
However, the approval and its justification only applied to this one wolf, which was found by a farmer in his goat pen and was filmed by an eyewitness with a mobile phone while roaming through the village of Bergen in the Traunstein district at night. Bergen is around 380 kilometers as the crow flies from Prostějov, where the animal was run over. Wolf experts and many hunters had already suspected in January that GW2425m was long gone and a shot could possibly hit another animal.