Wolves under pressure: Change of hunting rights to protect the farm animals!

Wolves under pressure: Change of hunting rights to protect the farm animals!

forest owners, farmers and hunters advocate the plans of the black and red coalition to include the wolf into hunting law. This decision aims to target the wolf stocks to protect sheep and goats. Max von Elverfeldt, President of the Association of Family Business Land and Forst, is critical and explains that it is high time to regulate the wolf stock through hunting. In 2023, wolves in Germany about 5,700 farm animals , including almost 5,000 sheep, which leads to considerable economic damage to the farmers.

Helmut Dammann-Tamke, President of the German Hunting Association, supports the livestock owners who are demanding active herd protection. The Union and SPD coalition agreement states that the wolf should be accepted “immediately” into hunting law. This also corresponds to a proposal of the EU Commission, which provides a downgrading of the wolf's protection status from "strictly protected" to "protected".

herd protection and legal bases

The new coalition agreement, which comprises 146 pages, calls for the legally self -proof removal of wolves in the "Herd Protection" section. The implementation of this proposal to downgrade the protection status is incorporated into national law through the Federal Nature Conservation Act (BNASCHG) and the Federal Hunting Act (BjagdG). Dammann-Tamke emphasizes the urgency of action on this matter.

calculations in the monitoring report 2023/24 show that at least 1,601 wolves live in Germany. For the previous year there were 31 percent more attacks, 1,268 assault were documented. However, the Nabu nature conservation association warns that hunting the wolf does not make herd protection unnecessary. Details about the planned changes in the law have so far been unclear.

social consensus

The downgrading of the Wolf Protection, which comes into force on April 12, 2025, was decided by the constant committee of the Bern Convention at the end of 2024. According to the German Hunting Association, this is the first step towards a regionally differentiated wolf management in Germany. In the future, it will be crucial to develop a strategy that also takes up top limits for wolf stocks and the removal of striking packs.

A social agreement on how to deal with the wolf is essential. The German Hunting Association demands that this are based on a knowledge -based and factual discourse. It is also emphasized that property damage or threats of violence in the context of wolf withdrawals should be pursued. In some federal states, the wolf is already anchored in hunting law, including in Saxony, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Hesse and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

The coming months will be decisive to create the necessary legal foundations for efficient wolf management and to meet the demands of farmers and the general public.