A battle over the future of wolves ignites across Europe

A male wolf crept into a horse paddock in the municipality of Burgdorf-Beinhorn, Germany, under an almost full moon. He stalked Dolly, a gentle chestnut horse with a white blaze on her nose. At 30 years of age, Dolly was vulnerable. She was chosen as his next meal.

Editorial Wild beim Wild — 13 July 2025

Dolly was owned by Ursula von der Leyen, the German President of the European Commission.

After the killing of the pony Dolly in Burgdorf-Beinhorn in 2022, local authorities used DNA samples from her carcass to identify the killer as a wolf designated GW950m. This animal was already being sought by others for preying on livestock in the area. Its protected status was revoked and it was placed on a kill list.

In autumn 2023, hobby hunters shot a large wolf they believed to be GW950m. But they soon learned they had been mistaken. Instead, they had killed his mate, the mother of his cubs.

Later that year, a court in Hanover banned the hunting of GW950m after the German group “Freunde wilder Wölfe” (Friends of Wild Wolves) filed a petition.

In May, Ralf Hentschel, an activist with the group, said that GW950m has found a new mate. They are still living in Burgdorf-Beinhorn, together with their two cubs born last year.

Wolves lose “strictly protected” status in Europe

The European Union has spent millions securing the return of wolf populations that were decimated over generations by hunting and poison baits. As a result, wolves began to recover across Europe. But in May 2025, the European Parliament voted to downgrade the protection status of wolves. Environmental groups warn that this would undo “decades of progress” and could once again threaten this important species. In a press release, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) described the move as an “unjustified crusade”.

The driving force behind this change was Ursula von der Leyen and the European Commission she leads. Three days after Dolly's death, she said wolves had become “a real danger to livestock” and “possibly also to humans” in some parts of Europe. Her words angered conservationists, who pointed out that according to the European Commission's 2023 report, there had not been a single fatal wolf attack on humans in Europe in over 40 years.

Von der Leyen called for a thorough analysis of wolf attacks on livestock – and then pushed to lift the protection status of wolves, which has been in place since 1979 under the Berne Convention.

Von der Leyen belongs to the conservative European People's Party, which has sought to win the support of farmers. But her zeal surprised EU diplomats in Brussels, who told Politico that she was personally involving herself in technical discussions normally left to scientific experts. They called her approach “bizarre.” Environmental groups have accused the European Commission of using wolves as a “bargaining chip” to win the support of livestock farmers and thereby gain “political advantages.” They have claimed that von der Leyen is “purely personally motivated.”

“There is no scientific justification for weakening the protection of wolves,” said Gaia Angelini, President of Green Impact, a non-profit environmental organization based in Brussels and Rome. “Wolves are still endangered in some parts of Europe.”

Wolfsschutz: Klage beim EuGH gegen Herabstufung

A fierce battle over the future of wolves

Wolves and other apex predators play an important role in natural ecosystems. Amid a global crisis leading to a widespread collapse of biodiversity, wolves, according to conservationists, help keep the species they hunt healthy by preying on weak or sick animals and reducing the spread of diseases such as Lyme disease. They keep populations of deer, wild boar and other ungulates in check and on the move, giving plants and shrubs that might otherwise be eaten a chance to grow. Their presence is celebrated by environmentalists as a sign of hope for the recovery of nature.

Their return has, however, also angered and frightened livestock farmers and other people in rural communities who must learn to live with these once nearly extinct creatures. Farmers who previously let their sheep roam freely must now invest in electric fences or trained sheepdogs to protect their herds – or they risk, in some areas, losing part of their animals to wolves.

The number of domestic animals killed remains vanishingly small. According to an EU report, wolves kill a total of approximately 0.065% of the roughly 70 million sheep and goats in the EU, primarily sheep, per year. A recently peer-reviewed study from Poland, in which scientists analysed wolf faeces over two years, found that where there is sufficient wildlife for wolves to prey upon, wolves rarely attack even in areas where cattle and horses roam unprotected.

The EU provides funding for the construction of protective measures for livestock and can compensate for the loss of livestock, although some farmers say the process is not always straightforward.

For smaller agricultural operations, however, a wolf presence can still have severe consequences. And the anger over the return of wolves runs deep. In Germany, a severed wolf's head was placed in front of a local nature conservation authority. In Switzerland, farmers placed the carcasses of sheep killed by wolves in front of a regional government building. In Italy, six black rubbish bags containing nine dead wolves were found on a mountain pass strewn with wildflowers. Among them were a pregnant female and seven pups — an entire pack. They had been poisoned.

Adapting to life with wolves

As far-right parties have gained ground in both national governments and the European Parliament in Brussels, the EU's nature restoration efforts are being rolled back. The vote to reduce wolf protection zones was pushed through as an “urgency procedure,” normally reserved for emergencies. This meant the bill was able to bypass some of the usual protocols that would provide for closer scrutiny.

Green Impact and four other environmental and animal welfare groups are challenging the decision to downgrade the wolf's protected status before the European Court of Justice. Over 700 scientists and academics, as well as the International Union for Conservation of Nature, have signed letters opposing the change in protection status, arguing that the EU decision has no scientific basis.

The European Ombudsman has now launched an investigation to examine whether von der Leyen's European Commission followed the correct protocols when it pushed for this change, which environmentalists believe will have far-reaching consequences for Europe's wolf populations and for the EU's reputation as a leader in biodiversity protection.

Italy has made efforts to dispel fears about wolves

Wolves have long captured the human imagination. And since the Middle Ages, wolves have been hunted and killed by humans. According to the International Wolf Center, between 1870 and 1877 an estimated 100’000 wolves per year were killed in the United States for their fur. In Europe, they were brought to the brink of extinction.

«It was not only legal, but even a duty to kill wolves by laying poison baits», says Piero Genovesi, head of the National Wildlife Service of the Italian environmental agency ISPRA.

In the 1970s, as scientists gained a better understanding of the important role of apex predators in nature, conservationists launched a campaign to polish the image of the wolf. In Italy, a deeply Roman Catholic country, they drew on the story of Saint Francis of Assisi, who befriended wolves, to change local people's perception of the animal.

By 2022, ISPRA estimated the number of wolves in Italy at over 3’300, the largest population in Europe.

Wolf tourism has helped to revitalise economically disadvantaged rural areas

Their comeback could help revitalise economically disadvantaged regions such as the Italian Abruzzo. The beautiful medieval borghi – hilltop towns – in this region are emptying as Italians move to cities for work and Italy struggles with a low birth rate. Nature tourism, offering the chance to observe wolves and bears, is bringing new life to this economy.

Although wolves continue to enjoy a degree of protection under the new law, experts believe that the relaxation of regulations will in practice lead vigilantes to kill even more animals than the law permits – a fact that, according to Genovesi of ISPRA, would be “really dangerous” for wolf conservation in European countries.

Instead, Genovesi argues, the EU could focus on better training and equipping farmers to protect their livestock. In the rural areas of Abruzzo, where wolf populations have always existed, the presence of wolves is largely accepted, even by many farmers. The knowledge of how to coexist with them has been passed down through generations. The sheep are never left alone, protected by shaggy white Abruzzo dogs or watched over by shepherds.

"The wolf is a wild animal like all the others here," says Luca De Rosa, a local farmer, as he throws fennel from his truck onto a field for his cows. «On one day he is on my side of the mountain, the next he has moved on. Why should we shoot them?»

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