"Little Red Riding Hood", "Three Little Pigs", "The Wolf and the Seven Kids"... Numerous fairy tales tell about the evil wolf and teach children that they should be afraid of them. The wolf has been a symbol of cunning and malice since ancient times. And in real life, this predator harms people by killing their sheep and goats.
People's fear of the wolf brought this predator to the brink of extinction in the 19th century. In the last hundred years, it is slowly returning to its natural habitats.
Today, about 17.000 individuals live in Central Europe. The wolf is protected in the European Union and can only be hunted in exceptional cases. But the law is now being questioned.
Good for the ecosystem, bad for livestock
According to scientific knowledge, wolves are useful for their environment. Studies from the US and Canada show that ecosystems where wolves live recover when they are reintroduced.
But not everyone is happy about the return of the wolves. As the population grows, wolf habitats become closer to humans. Predators are killing livestock and there is a growing fear that they could attack people as well.
In Germany, farmers in the northern state of Lower Saxony feel it the most. In the period from January to August this year, wolves killed more than 600 domestic animals grazing there. This has led some farmers to solve the problem themselves, by illegally killing wolves.
Will the EU change the laws?
About a year ago, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen found herself at the center of a debate after a wolf slaughtered a pony on her farm in Lower Saxony.
Soon after, the animal with the identification number GV950m was authorized to be killed. However, the animal has managed to elude hunters for now, partly due to court decisions that have temporarily overturned this decision.
At the beginning of September, the president of the European Commission spoke about this topic again: The concentration of wolf packs in some parts of Europe now poses a danger to livestock, and possibly to people.
Von der Leyen called on local and national authorities to "take action wherever necessary". EU legislation does not stand in the way.
Wolf or agriculture?
But pressure is growing on the European Commission to substantially facilitate the legal hunting of wolves. Farmers and hunters demand it.
"A faster and more efficient culling of wolves that kill grazing animals is needed, as well as a reliable process for regulating the wolf population," said Joachim Ruckvid, president of the German Farmers' Association, in August.
Otherwise, as he pointed out, animal husbandry will disappear from Germany: "Livestock on pastures - cattle, sheep, goats and horses - could be a thing of the past."
On the other hand, nature conservationists call on the EU to stick to the existing rules: "Wolves are part of the European landscape. We have already almost exterminated them, now we have to protect their place in the ecosystem," Fabijan Ketije from the Dutch organization Rewilding Europe told DW.
Back to the 19th century - because of fear?
In the XNUMXs, the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in the United States contributed to the recovery of riverine and forest ecosystems.
The increasing number of deer and elk has led to forest damage and erosion. Wolves not only reduced the population of their prey, but also changed their behavior. They now avoid the valleys and canyons of the national park.
As a result, the entire nature of Yellowstone has recovered: many species of plants, insects, birds and mammals that were considered lost have returned, even the rivers have recovered.
In Europe, there are also signs that the return of wolves is regulating game populations and reducing stress on the plants that feed on: "In essence, we can say that wolves are balancing ecosystems," says Ketje.
Wolves rarely attack humans. According to the report of the organization for nature protection WWF, in the period from 2002 to 2020 there were a total of twelve such cases in Europe and North America.
However, Ketje fears that irrational fears could have a similar impact as in the 19th century: "There is a danger that extermination programs will be started again. And that would have terrible consequences for the environment."
The EU is now faced with the task of finding a compromise that satisfies both ecosystems and farmers.
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