Berlin – The Federal Agency for Nature Conservation has just announced the latest data on wolves. Now there is criticism from the German Hunting Association (DJV). He speaks of the fact that the numbers are “from yesterday” and therefore not suitable for the current debate about how to deal with the strictly protected predator.
The figures are determined from May 1st to April 30th of the following year and announced at the end of the year. In the wolf year 2019/2020, 128 packs of young animals, 35 couples without pups and ten individual animals lived in a fixed territory nationwide. There are now 26 more packs, i.e. 157 packs, as well as 27 pairs and 19 individual animals. Most of the packs live in Brandenburg. There are 49.
4000 livestock torn in one year
“The official figures are lagging behind,” said DJV Vice President Helmut Dammann-Tamke. The association is particularly critical of the fact that the Federal Office continues to only name the number of packs, but not the number of all wolves. There are about eight animals per pack. This means that there are currently 1,600 wolves. In the previous year, they killed almost 4,000 sheep, goats and calves. That is a third more than the year before. “The extent of the damage and the attacks is so great that in some regions the acceptance of the wolf is in question.”
The number of wolves is crucial because it is about protection status. In the second half of the 20th century, 40 wolves immigrated from Poland. According to the wolf experts in Lusatia, 30 animals were hunted and ten died in traffic. In 1998 a pair of wolves settled on a military training area in Saxony, and two years later they had their first puppies. It was the first pack that was found back in Germany about 150 years after the extinction. In 2008 there were five packs in Lusatia. There are now 157 all over Germany.
The predators have been classified as “particularly protected” in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1980. In the GDR, wolves were subject to hunting law. Only after unification did they become a strictly protected species everywhere. The aim of the protective measures is to stabilize the population to such an extent that it is able to survive on its own. This means that without protective measures it will not get smaller again, that animals do not have to immigrate from other countries or that inbreeding does not occur. If a “favorable conservation status of the population” is established, the protection status could be relaxed.
For a long time, the guideline was 100 packs. Although there are now more, it says on the website of the Federal Environment Ministry: “Even if the wolf can be found again today in parts of Germany, it is still an endangered species. The desired goal is and remains to achieve a favorable conservation status for the species Wolf. “
Hunting Association wants to debate the protection status of wolves
The hunting association, on the other hand, wants to debate how the protection status should be dealt with. “If there are 1000 adult reproductive animals, then a population is considered to be able to survive,” said the association spokesman Torsten Reinwald, who is himself a wildlife biologist. This number should be viewed independently of national borders, which do not play a role for wild animals. The entire population has to be considered: from Germany to Poland to the Baltic States. This includes around 8,000 animals. “This has clearly achieved a favorable conservation status, and action could also be taken without endangering the population itself.”
The association points out that there are already 49 packs of up to 400 wolves in Brandenburg. “That’s more than in Sweden, which is 15 times larger,” said Reinwald. Wolves may also be hunted there under certain conditions. The association is now calling for “wild ecological spatial planning” for wolves. Experts should look where there are cheap and undisturbed habitats, then they should see whether people live there and whether farm animals are endangered. “And if necessary, it must then be ensured that the wolves do not live where there are too many conflicts,” he says. “That can only be done by removing the animals or by shooting.”
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