The government of Upper Bavaria decided on Friday that the wolf in the Traunstein district should be shot down. “For reasons of public safety” the removal is approved, according to a press release in official German. A genetic analysis has confirmed that it is always the same wolf that killed several sheep and other animals in the Traunstein region in mid-December. The predator was also filmed walking through the town of Bergen at night.
The expert commission at the State Office for the Environment came to the conclusion “in an overall view of the events that the animal has repeatedly stayed in the immediate vicinity of inhabited houses and is apparently looking for proximity to settlement structures,” says the statement. This increases the likelihood of dangerous encounters and conflicts between the animal and humans.
The general decree on the shooting should probably be published on Monday in a special official gazette, so it is valid.
The Traunstein District Administrator Siegfried Walch (CSU) had already submitted the application in mid-November, and he received prominent support from Minister of Agriculture Michaela Kaniber (CSU), among others. Conservationists, however, rejected the request. “We can’t see any dangerous behavior here,” said Uwe Friedel, the wolf expert for the federal government for nature conservation.
The wolf showed no interest in humans, but only approached the farms because it found easily accessible food there. The sheep and goats were not specially protected. The BN called for alternatives to shooting down to be examined and, for example, for better protection of livestock in the area. The conservationists announced a lawsuit against a possible shooting decision.