“Wolves in Europe: Commission urges local authorities to make full use of existing derogations and collects data for conservation status review.”
Svar fra Ulvetid
 
Dear European Commission,
In accordance with the Commission’s invitation to submit reactions to the possible proposal to modify the wolf’s protection status as regards weakening the strong protection of the European wolf we hereby take the opportunity of letting our voice be heard. We most strongly oppose the proposal for a number of reasons:
Killing wolves is in every aspect counterproductive.
The killing of a whole wolf family will soon lead to new wolves taking over the vacant territory. Killing individual members of a wolf family will lead to disruption and eventually to increased problems with regard to attacks on livestock (especially sheep). If the structures of the wolf family is destroyed, the surviving wolves will have severe difficulties in hunting their normal pray (roe- or red deer) and eventually target the easier prey; sheep.
The solution lies in protecting livestock either by fencing with electrical fence or to use guard dogs. A wolf that experiences an electric shock on a fence or gets chased away by a guard dog will soon learn to stay away from sheep and other livestock and it will teach its offspring to do the same and concentrate on a wolf’s natural prey.
There is solid evidence based on numerous investigations supporting this. Among others, the wolf attacks on livestock in Denmark have dropped dramatically even though the wolf population has almost doubled within the past five years. Not one single attack on livestock that was grazing behind predator safe fences has been reported yet.
As regards wolves becoming a hazard for humans there is absolutely nothing supporting this argument, so we are very surprised that it has brought forward by the President of the European Commission in connection with the loss of her 30-year-old pony. It would be very interesting to hear the reasons for this extraordinary assumption.
Even though more than 17.000 wolves are living close to millions of humans in Europe there has not been one single predatory wolf attack on a human being for the past almost 50 years. Wolves prefer to stay away from humans and in contrast to other predators; they will not even attack humans in order to protect their young. No other predator is safer for humans than wolves. Horses are much more dangerous to humans, so the insinuation that wolves could pose a danger is grasped out of thin air and completely lacking relevance.
Wolves even have a positive effect as regards preventing diseases like swine fever and chronic waste disease from spreading. Wolves are superior to humans when it comes to detecting infected or sick wild boars and will prey on these instead of – like humans – targeting the largest and most impressive individuals. It has been proven that swine fever bacteria does not survive in the wolf’s stomach, so the bacteria will not be passed on by wolves.
Wolves play a very important role in a balanced nature as they prey on week or sick animals thus securing that only the strongest and healthiest individuals live to generate offspring. They also keep minor predators in check so the balance of nature remains balanced.
For these and a number of other reasons we strongly oppose of weakening the protection of wolves and would like to draw attention to the fact 12 environmental ministers from a number of EU-countries addressed the request from the parliament from November 2022, in which the commission was requested to modify the protection status for the wolves, by urging the commission not to downgrade the protection for the wolves in the habitats directive.
We therefore hope for the only sensible decision in this matter – a status quo as regards the strict protection of wolves in Europe.
Best regards
Helle Netterstroem Juntermanns
Member of the board
Ole Pedersen
Chairman
The association Ulvetid
Maglemosen 1 – 4070 Kr. Hyllinge – Denmark
Phone.: + 45 60613739
Mail: formand@ulvetid.dk
Homepage: www.ulvetid.dk