In December 2024, the European Union’s Habitats Directive was officially amended: the wolf went from “strictly protected” to “protected” status.
We just signed a NGO’s letter asking the EU member states to not lower the protection status of the wolf and to intensify efforts to achieve coexistence between wolves and rural communities. This action aims to demonstrate, one year after the directive was amended, that NGOs across the EU remain unconvinced by the political U-turn the EU has made on species protection when the EU lowered the protection status of the wolf against scientific evidence.
The change was formalized after the Bern Convention, which regulates the protection of wild fauna and flora in Europe, updated the wolf’s conservation status. The EU has therefore adapted its legislation.
EU Member States now have greater flexibility in managing wolf populations: in some areas, it will potentially be easier to authorize culling or containment measures, particularly where there are conflicts with agricultural or livestock activities.
In recent decades the wolf population in Europe has grown significantly, but the decision “turns its back on science”: there is no evidence that management through culling solves the problems, and the down listing could undermine what has been achieved so far in terms of conservation.
On the contrary, hunting associations and landowners are celebrating the decision as a step toward “realistic and sustainable management” of wolves, taking into account only the needs of farmers and ranchers.
Once again, humans are placed on the highest and most important level of other animals, completely forgetting the importance and equality of all animals.
The impact on livestock in statistical terms is low. Considering the total livestock in Europe, the probability that a single animal is attacked by a wolf is very low: on average around 0.02%–0.07% per year.
Livestock attacks, while they do occur, remain statistically rare and represent a minimal percentage of all farmed animals. The wolf is an opportunistic predator, but avoids human contact and tends to strike especially when livestock is not adequately protected.
Coexistence is possible but requires good practices: fences, guard dogs, preventative measures, and a balance between protecting biodiversity and protecting rural communities. In the countries where preventative measures have been adopted predation rates have been dropped significantly.
Despite this, the European Union has chosen to downgrade the wolf’s level of protection, opening the way to more frequent culling. Relying solely on perceived risks, rather than on actual data, risks endangering a key ecosystem species. The wolf plays a fundamental role in maintaining the natural balance. It regulates wild ungulate populations, limits the expansion of wild boars, and contributes to the biodiversity of forests and pastures. Reducing its protection weakens a vital element of the ecological chain.
This is encouraging indiscriminate culling, without addressing the root causes of the agricultural sector’s problems.
There are already many deaths of wolves due to human causes, see for example the data of wolves hit or killed by poaching and therefore a culling plan without scientific motivations but only for opportunistic political reasons, can only put in crisis not only the existence of the wolf as at the end of the seventies of the last century but the entire ecosystem that regulates the biodiversity already put in difficulty by human intervention.
The real issue is not the presence of the wolf, but the need to support farmers with effective tools: prevention, rapid compensation, training, and adequate infrastructure. And even better to stop eating meat and animal products and end animal farming.
The regulatory change makes it easier to hunt or selectively control specific areas – which poses the risk that, in the absence of serious and science-based management plans, some local populations may decline too rapidly or excessively. The downgrading sets also a precedent: if the wolf—a conservation icon—could lose its “strictly protected” status, it signals that other protected species could be similarly reassessed, with unpredictable consequences for European biodiversity.
Downgrading the protection status of the wolf also undermines existing efforts to support co-existence between wolves and local communities, in fact we really need to intensify efforts to achieve coexistence between wolves and rural communities.
Protecting wolves in Europe is not only a matter of ecological significance, but also a reflection of our commitment to biodiversity conservation and the values of coexistence and tolerance. Wolves are an integral part of Europe’s natural heritage, playing a vital role in maintaining ecosystem balance and biodiversity, and the return of the wolf to parts of Europe where the species had previously been extirpated is a considerable conservation success that must not be wasted.
Coexistence is not only possible but necessary.
