EU: less protection for wolves in the wild?
A majority of EU environment ministers have spoken out in favour of downgrading the wolf's protected status in Europe. The move will allow the hunting of wolves under certain circumstances, fulfilling a long-standing demand from farmers for improved protection of grazing livestock. Europe's press weighs in.
Ignoring old wisdom
Pravda harshly criticises the decision:
“The wolf does no harm; on the contrary, it keeps the forest in order. ... An excess of wild animals causes great damage in the forests, and swine fever occurs only where there is no wolf. A diseased wild boar is easily caught by a wolf, which is why this disease does not exist where wolves live. In natural forests, the wolf keeps the number of deer at a level that does not endanger the rejuvenation and self-renewal of the forest. ... People used to know this!”
Protect animals in pastures
The conflicts between wolves and humans should not be ignored, Lidové noviny warns:
“It would be naive to believe that we can keep wolves in national parks, that there is no need to protect livestock, and that legally facilitating the shooting of certain individuals will completely eliminate the damage. It is equally naive to set a fixed number that the wolf population should not exceed. After all, we have experience with the so-called standardised conditions of ungulates, where these rather virtual limits often represent only a fraction of the real number of animals in the landscape.”
Predator and prey both key to local identity
For La Opinión de Zamora, the occasional culling is not a problem:
“The greatest threat to the grazing and pasturing sector, along with market fluctuations, is the Iberian wolf. ... Neither farmers nor hunters nor agricultural organisations want to criminalise this predator. If sheep are a source of pride and an identifying symbol for the north-west region of Zamora, so is the presence of the wolf in the Sierra de la Culebra, which has the highest wolf population density in Western Europe. Wildlife tourism has led to the establishment of small businesses that attract visitors to the villages.... However, the preservation of the species is not incompatible with occasional culls, as shown by the population growth in Castilla y León between 2012 and 2022, a period in which management of the species through hunting was carried out.”