A majority of EU Member States agreed to adopt the European Commission’s proposal to downgrade the protection status of the wolf under the Bern Convention. This shift opens the door to wolf culling as a false solution to livestock depredation, which runs counter to Europe’s commitment to safeguard and restore biodiversity. The decision which cannot be scientifically justified went through after Germany changed its position from abstention to support.
With this decision, Member States have chosen to ignore the call of over 300 civil society organisations, among others EuroNatur, and more than 300,000 people urging them to follow scientific recommendations and step up efforts to foster coexistence with large carnivores through preventive measures.
[…]
Wolves are strictly protected under both the Bern Convention and the EU Habitats Directive, serving as a keystone species vital for healthy ecosystems and biodiversity across Europe. Weakening their protection will hinder the ongoing recovery of wolf populations.
‘The EU’s decision will not only destabilise the still fragile wolf populations in large parts of Europe, but also undermine the significant progress made towards a coexistence of humans and wolves,’ says Antje Henkelmann, project manager and wolf expert at EuroNatur. ‘Only efficient herd protection can prevent livestock kills. Instead, the EU is focussing on symbolic but inefficient culls. With her turnaround, the Federal Environment Minister is not only weakening wolf protection, but also giving in to populist demands that are of little use to livestock farmers,’’ says the biologist.
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This is still all about Ursula von der Leyen’s personal vendetta after her pony died, isn’t it?
And the farmers and cattle breeders wanting the EU to fight and not fight climate change and the destruction of the ecosystems that support them all at once, preferably in a way that maximizes their short term profits.
She does have a name of a Disney character that would do such a thing.
name checks
I mean a little girl was bitten quite severely a few weeks ago around here. I’m not saying this is the best choice but it’s also easy to make a glib offhand comment about a complicated situation.
I don’t think a single unprovoked attack this decade and no deaths from wolf attacks in Europe in the 21st century make this a “complicated situation”.
This isn’t about humans but about farmers. Someone I know just recently told me that they lost a few sheep to a wolf attack. Of course they wanted to be refunded, but the officials who checked if he’s eligible for a refund found one short area where his fence was 2 cm too low, therefore he didn’t get anything. He sold his remaining animals and stopped, just like a few of his colleagues who’d stopped before already.
This decision isn’t because of wolves but because the system didn’t work.
I mean, the current level of cattle breeding is not compatible with long term survival of human beings, so the system is not working regardless of wolves.
I assume you’re hinting mass producing farms, those aren’t affected by wolves anyway (and cattle isn’t, it’s more about smaller animals like sheep). The ones who are affected are the ones who don’t have as many animals but let them be outside.
To prevent being affected by wolves they could of course keep their sheep indoors, but then they aren’t getting organic meat certificates anymore leading to less money, requiring them to keep much more sheep. Which is not what should be encouraged.
Isn’t that kind of on him? If he didn’t meet the minimum requirements, what’s the controversy? Yes the govt could have made an exception, but then the next person who’s 3 cm short points to him as an example, and there we go.
So let’s ban all dogs too then, right?
And cars. Since on european roads, more than 20.000 people got killed. (Source)
Dogs do get killed if they bite someone.
So let’s only kill the wolves that kill people then…?
Tell me where I said to kill all the wolves?
That’s in the context you replied to, see the comment of FTM99. If you want to say something in this branch of conversations but without the things implied by the previous messages, you need to specify that.
Your hyperbolic comment about banning dogs didn’t make any sense in context to the previous comment.
You’re more likely to die of a wild boar attack or of a cow than a wolf in europe.
Source please.
https://www.rtvutrecht.nl/nieuws/3777023/meisje-werd-beslopen-en-aangevallen-vader-en-bso-doen-hun-verhaal-over-de-wolf Here’s a dutch source about the bite btw. Wouldn’t call it severe but the wolf did stalk and attack her. Also another child was pushed over by one, and a dog bitten.
They didn’t shoot the wolf btw. Think it just left.
It’s possible to change the language of the article as I’ve seen. Thanks for the link, it was an interesting read!
I’m glad the girl has not been severly injured. Of course, such things should not happen. The parents must have been extremely worried about their child, let alone how terrified the child was. I hope it won’t stay traumatised from that.
Yesterday, I’ve also read on another occasion about the other child being rammed by a wolf. I think it’s possible to educate people in a manner such they can deal with their children and pets responsibly in areas where wolf populations exist. Wolves don’t attack humans without reason. According to the article you’ve linked, a behavioural biologist states that the wolf bit her lightly as a warning to stay away. Of course a 5 year old child doesn’t understand this. But it should be possible in this case to implement precautions for the supervisors. Maybe fence off the school ground, get educated how to handle wolf contacts, install auditive deterrents on a frequency only wolves can hear and so on. This can help to improve a peaceful co-existence between humans and wolves.
It’s not surprising that incidents like these can tilt the public opinion against wolves. Which is why it’s even more important to highlight other non-lethal alternatives as solutions.
Yeah 1 girl bitten, 1 girl pushed, 1 dog bitten and 1 dog just dragged away into the forest while leashed. And the government doesn’t know what to do, they don’t want to shoot them. Of course if the population of wolves increases these things will happen more often. That’s why I said we just don’t have the space. This shouldn’t be able to happen if people here don’t even believe it.
May I ask where this happend?
Let’s not forget that livestock farmers can get financial compensation in case their animals really got killed by wolves.
So what’s the fucking problem?
Yes, and according to an EU report in 2023, only 0.065% of the bloc’s sheep population had been killed by wolves and there had been no reports of fatal wolf attacks on humans for 40 years. Source (you need to scroll down to the end of the article for these numbers).
My in laws are shepherds. The situation isn’t as easy as you’d think. When some or their sheep were killed, they were denied compensation for a variety of bureaucratic reasons. Much worse than the uncompensated loss of some sheep was that the flock afterwards rejected the pasture, refusing to be led onto it again. Now they have a pasture they can only use to produce hay, which isn’t what they need, and need to rent additional space to let their sheep graze on, which they of course aren’t compensated for either. I can understand their anger, with the country not providing any compensation whatsoever (which people assume it does) and generally feeling left alone with a problem that they wouldn’t even have if it wasn’t for rather abstract environmental reasons.
I understand that. Thanks for this insight! This again underlines the importance to improve the bureaucratic process of getting compensation and other forms of aids in order to protect the herds.
But surely killing wolves is not the way to go here instead.
Although this might get me downvoted, but killing wolves does solve that problem, so for farmers this is a way to go here and simply dismissing their pov doesn’t make it easier to convince them otherwise. There haven’t been wolves in central Europe for decades, so the environment seems to be able to deal with some more deer. I get the environmental reasons, but it’s not like the whole system immediately collapses without wolves. For farmers, this introduces a long solved problem because some city dwelling greens want to get their karma balanced without paying for it while they (the farmers) then have to deal with the consequences. Just providing money doesn’t address a lot of issues, as I explained above, and even if it did, it’s you, the farmer, who is knee deep in the insides of your gutted animal to clean up the mess, just to then end up in an annoying, overly complex bureaucratic process that may or may not result in some money being thrown at you by loafers wearing hipsters that think that this makes everything right. It doesn’t. My in-laws raised rejected or orphaned lambs with baby bottles in their living room. Do they later kill these sheep for a living? Yes. But they also seriously attempt to previously have them live a fulfilled and peaceful life, so having their whole flock panicking around a handful of violently gutted mother sheep while essentially being denied both, fair compensation and empathy for their situation does make them understandably bitter. And, to be honest, I’m pretty on board with the idea that wild wolves should fear proximity to humans and their herds, so shooting wolves that think that sheep or cows are an easier prey than deer isn’t such a one sided terrible idea as it is often made out to be here.
Hunters wouldn’t have to hunt for deer and boar anymore, because they’re taking the place of wolfs, lynx and bears.
So they shoot the wolfs and can continue to hunt.
In the netherlands we got a letter warning us not to go into the forest with dogs or small children since the wolves are attacking them. There’s not enough space here for them to safely roam unfortunately.
Wolves, in general, don’t approach humans and don’t attack them as long as not provoked. Such behaviour as what has happened in the netherlands is rather unusual. However, in principle learning how to coexist, involving how to responsibly manage pets and children, and how to handle areas where larger wolve populations reside, is better than to kill them in terms of benefits for the ecosystem as well as wildlife protection.
You asked what the problem was. I gave you a problem here.
I see. Thank you.
Do you feel like that’s the most significant reason for why popularity about the idea of returning wolf populations are decreasing in the netherlands?
From my point of view (Germany) it feels like it’s mostly livestock farmers who are complaining and propagating populistic and scientifically incorrect nonsense about wolves.
Such events only highlight the importance of what scientists and wildlife / environmental protection organisations are demanding and what I’ve summarized before.
I don’t mind wolves, it’s cool that they are here. Would love to see one. I just think that there are only a few places here where they could live properly. We are very densely populated. I’m getting a lot of downvotes in this thread cause it sounds like I don’t want wolves here or something. I couldn’t care less about cattle. I just think that culling is sometimes needed if it gets out of hand.
If it gets out of hand and there is no better way, sure. I guess there’s a lot of checkboxes to be checked before this is the only viable alternative.
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Like one dude mentions that a girl got bitten here. Then some moron comments about “hurdur ban all dogs then too”. So wolves have dragged a dog on a leash into the forest, bitten another dog, pushed over a girl, bitten another girl all in the span of 2 months maybe. And the government couldn’t do anything to the wolves cause it’s protected. Dogs get killed if they bite someone. But yeah sure let’s upvote hyperbolic nonsense and people asking for sources instead of people saying there are problems with wolves and the sources. Fucking hell it still annoys me.
Yeah it’s really frustrating sometimes…
when the alt right wins, we don’t follow scientific advice anymore.
When ANY conservative wins, all data based decision making is replaced entirely with feefees.
Same thing really
giving in to populist demands that are of little use to livestock farmers,’’
Why am I not surprised. There was definitely pressure from farmers, and they can be powerful political lobby groups.
Does the EU even have the authority to rule over stuff like this? I’m pretty sure they don’t and this decision will have no impact on the policies of the member countries.
Yes it does. The EU articles basically say that anything that gets agreed can be binding to member states.
In practice, the structure of the EU institutions keeps a very tight leash on that, by not passing them. This got passed.
After some more reading it seems this isn’t a decision by the EU but the members of the Bern Convention which the EU members are just part of. Some African and American countries are also members of that.
As for decision by the EU: only decisions effecting trade between countries seem enforceable, internal policy can’t be forced by the EU on member countries, it’s a choice to adopt EU laws. Like for example the EU copyright directive was passed in 2019 and only 4 member states chose to adopt it to this day.
After some more reading it seems this isn’t a decision by the EU but the members of the Bern Convention
Thanks, I tried to glean the primary source, but couldn’t find it. Hate browsing on mobile.
EU copyright directive
That’s what I’m talking about, there are different classes of EU rules, there are mainly opinions (non-binding), directives (members states should theoretically comply, but are free to figure out how to, so what you described might happen), and regulations (becomes law immediately everywhere on passing).
So for example member states have no room to avoid complying with the GDPR, or the one reg about no roaming charges, but passing a regulation is very, very hard. But if it gets passed, individual member state parliaments have no role, it overrides national legislation. But only for regulations.
The member countries approved the Commission’s move already.
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Wolves aren’t a threat to humans.
There has been one attack in the 21st century.
I’ve been attacked by a buzzard (bird of prey). Doesn’t mean we should start culling them.
They are a direct threat to farm animals though.
And if a farm animal was killed by a wolf, the farmer can get financial compensation for the animal. So what’s the problem really?
Besides, farm animals get killed by humans en masse. The “animal produce” industry is one of the major contributors to climate change, constantly worsening the life of everyone, leading to an ongoing decline in wildlife and killing thousands of humans, especially during heat waves. But if rarely some wolves kill a farm animal, it’s suddenly a gigantic problem.
The irony in this…
Less of a threat than dogwalkers. Do you propose we kill people’s pets too?
Besides, farmers get reimbursed for livestock that are killed.
Buzzards?
But … why? There is a lot of reason to not put humans first everywhere. Having a natural ecosystem with biodiversity, wolves and even bears is totally preferable to some guys being able to hike through every forest everywhere.
