by Brian McCombie - Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Here’s the scenario: Growing populations of gray wolves are killing ever increasing numbers of livestock and game animals, and farmers and hunters are among those calling for reductions in wolf numbers. The government actually hears the calls and, in response, reduces the legal protections currently afforded wolves so that at least those apex predators that are killing livestock can be depredated. Almost immediately, animal rights types condemn the shift in the wolves’ legal status and insist that the controversy is greatly overblown and that non-lethal management efforts should be implemented instead.
So, in which of our 50 states is this playing out?
Actually, this story line is occurring in Europe where last week Politico reported that “members of the Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats [recently] approved a bid to modify the status of wolves from a ‘strictly protected’ to a ‘protected’ species, according to a press statement. This clears the way for the EU [European Union] to modify the Habitats Directive and make it easier for national authorities to grant derogations to kill wolves deemed to pose a threat to farmers’ livestock. That process is expected to take about a year.”
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said the vote represented "a balanced approach between the preservation of wildlife and the protection of our livelihoods," and the European Hunters Federation said the vote was a “conservation success.” According to the U.K.’s weekly news magazine The Week, von der Leyen’s own pony was killed by a gray wolf in Germany's Lower Saxony region in 2022.
As shared on its website, the Bern Convention encompasses 49 countries and the European Union that have signed up to the Convention and remain “committed to promoting national conservation policies, considering the impact of planning and development on the natural environment, promoting education and information on conservation, and coordinating research.”
According to Wikipedia, the wolf in question is the Eurasian wolf (Canis lupus lupus) a sub-species of the gray wolf. Historically, the Eurasian wolf roamed from the British Isles, throughout Europe and Russia, and across the Asian Continent to include present day Mongolia and China.
As human populations grew across Europe, farming and livestock raising took hold, and the hungry wolves were increasingly hunted. By 1900, the wolves were extirpated in many locales or confined to tiny populations in Europe. That all began to change by the 1950s, with wolves slowly but steadily making a comeback, in part due to legal protections that prohibited the hunting of wolves. In some countries, even local wildlife officials could not cull problem wolves.
With the growing numbers of wolves across Europe, wolf-human interactions and problems have definitely increased. A graph posted by Wikipedia, for example, revealed zero domestic animals were killed by wolves in 2000 in Germany. But in 2020 alone, that surged to nearly 4,000 animals taken by wolves.
Despite such facts, last week animal rights organizations remained quick to insist that European politicians have made wolves into political pawns and that the expected wolf culls will endanger decades of conservation efforts aimed at the large carnivores.
The proposal to downlist the wolves is based on data showing a population increase of 81% in the last decade across Europe, as noted by FACE, the European Federation for Hunting and Conservation, which represents some 7 million members and, like the NRA, works to promote hunting’s cultural acceptance and underscore its conservation benefits.
This change is not immediate but, FACE noted, should allow countries some needed flexibility to confront future wolf-human problems.
“We welcome the news that the EU’s proposal was positively received as an initiative to balance conservation and species management,” said Laurens Hoedemaker, president of FACE. “Importantly, this presents an opportunity for the Habitats Directive to accommodate this conservation success. There are still some legal hurdles, but they are now achievable.”
About the Author
Brian McCombie is a field editor for the NRA’s American Hunter and writes about firearms and gear for the NRA’s Shooting Illustrated. A member of the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Brian enjoys hunting hogs, shooting 1911s, watching the Chicago Bears and relaxing with his two cats.