Wolf in Europe: Politics and recreational hunting versus species protection

The wolf is back in Europe. After decades of strict protection, more than 20,000 wolves now live on the continent again. What should be a success story for species conservation is increasingly becoming a political football: protection status downgraded, kill quotas raised, hunting acts rewritten. This dossier brings together the facts, puts the European dimension into context and shows why 'more recreational hunting' is not a solution.

What awaits you here

The wolf: an ecological keystone species: Why the wolf, as an apex predator, promotes forest regeneration and biodiversity and regulates its own population density.
The European legal framework: From the Bern Convention to the Habitats Directive to the 2025 downgrade: how the wolf is losing its protection and why this is legally questionable.
Sweden 2026: Why the Swedish ruling against the wolf hunt is a signal to the whole of Europe.
Switzerland: proactive regulation as a euphemism: What the kill tallies for 2024/25 and 2025/26 show and what 'proactive regulation' really means.
Country comparison: How Germany, France, Norway, Italy and Spain deal with the wolf.
Herd protection: what actually works: Why electric fences, livestock guardian dogs and shepherding are more effective than kills.
The Geneva model: How wildlife management works without recreational hunting.
What would need to change: Demands for an evidence-based approach to the wolf in Switzerland and Europe.
Argumentation guide: Ten counter-arguments to the claim that the wolf must be hunted.
Quick links: All relevant articles, studies and sources.

The wolf: an ecological keystone species

The wolf (Canis lupus) is the largest wild member of the canid family in Europe. Wolves live in family groups (packs) and, as apex predators, regulate the populations of ungulates such as roe deer, red deer and wild boars. Their presence has measurable positive effects on forest regeneration, aquatic ecology and biodiversity.

A healthy wolf pack typically consists of a parent pair and their offspring from the previous one to two years. Reproduction is naturally limited: only the alpha pair breeds, and young wolves disperse as soon as they reach sexual maturity. Wolves thus largely regulate their own population density, depending on food supply and territory size.

The wolf had been exterminated across large parts of Europe by the 20th century. Intensive hunting, poisoning and habitat destruction had reduced populations to a few refuges in southern Europe, the Balkans and Scandinavia. Only strict protection from the 1970s and 1980s onwards allowed its return to begin.

More on this: Wolf in Switzerland: facts, politics and the limits of hunting and Animal portrait: The wolf

The European legal framework

Bern Convention (1979)

The Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats obliges 45 contracting states, including Switzerland, to protect endangered species. The wolf was listed in Appendix II as a "strictly protected species".

On 3 December 2024, the Standing Committee of the Council of Europe approved an EU proposal to downgrade the wolf from Appendix II (strictly protected) to Appendix III (protected). The change entered into force on 7 March 2025. Critics such as the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe described the decision as "premature and flawed". More than 700 scientists voiced concerns in open letters.

EU Habitats Directive (1992)

The Habitats Directive forms the heart of European nature conservation. The wolf was listed in Annex IV as a strictly protected species. On 8 May 2025, the European Parliament voted by 371 to 162 to move the wolf from Annex IV to Annex V (Directive 2025/1237). The change entered into force on 24 June 2025. Member states have until early 2027 to transpose the change into national law.

Crucially, several EU states have announced that they will maintain strict protection. Belgium, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland and Portugal intend to continue protecting the wolf strictly. At the same time, a legal challenge brought by five associations is pending before the European Court of Justice (ECJ), alleging a lack of scientific rigour and a breach of EU procedural rules.

Why the downgrade is questionable

The decision was taken under an expedited procedure, bypassing the responsible Environment Committee of the European Parliament. Wolves in Europe do not form a single population. In six of the EU's seven biogeographical regions, wolf populations are still in an unfavourable conservation status according to official assessments. The Court of Justice of the European Union has repeatedly stressed that protected species must be "protected from any deterioration" even after a favourable conservation status has been reached.

Conservation organisations, scientists and legal experts alike consider the downgrading to be politically motivated, driven by the agricultural lobby and conservative parties. The fact that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the vote as "important news for rural communities", and that her own pony was killed by a wolf in 2022, reinforces the impression of a decision driven by vested interests.

More on this: The fight over the wolf: why downgrading its protection status is legally and scientifically questionable and European initiatives

Sweden 2026: how the courts protect the wolf

Sweden was long regarded as a model of "robust wolf management" and was regularly cited as a reference by the Swiss recreational hunting lobby. In winter 2025/2026, licence hunting of 48 wolves was due to begin in five provinces.

But the courts stopped the recreational hunting: the administrative court in Luleå banned the licence hunt in December 2025. The court of appeal in Sundsvall upheld the ruling and dismissed all five appeals by the provincial administrations. The reasoning was unambiguous: the authorities were unable to show that the kills would not endanger the favourable conservation status of the wolf population.

At the heart of the case was the question of whether the reference value of 170 wolves (previously 300), lowered for political reasons by the government, could be scientifically justified as a lower limit. The courts said it could not. The European Commission had likewise criticised the move as scientifically untenable.

The Swedish ruling shows that species protection law is not a barometer of public mood but binding law that demands scientifically robust data. Anyone who wants to hunt the wolf must deliver more than political slogans and the complaints of the grazing livestock lobby. The ruling is a signal to the whole of Europe, including Switzerland, where similar strategies are being pursued with politically fixed population targets.

More on this: Wolf hunt halted in 2026: how the courts protect the wolf better than politicians do and Sweden halts wolf kills in 2026: A signal to Switzerland

Switzerland: 'Proactive regulation' as a euphemism

Switzerland is not an EU member but has ratified the Bern Convention. Since December 2023, the revised hunting act has permitted the so-called “proactive regulation” of wolf packs, meaning kills carried out before a wolf has caused any damage. The full Hunting Ordinance (JSV) entered into force on 1 February 2025.

The record is sobering: in the 2024/25 regulation period, the FOEN (BAFU) approved the kill of around 125 wolves, and 92 were shot pre-emptively. In the 2025/26 period, the FOEN approved 30 regulations, including 8 complete pack removals; 77 wolves were killed, 76 pre-emptively and one reactively (FOEN report of 18 May 2026). Even so, KORA counted 43 packs and 350 confirmed wolves in the 2025/26 monitoring year. In the current 2026/27 period, the FOEN had already granted 39 approvals for 37 packs in seven cantons by early October; the kills carried out are tracked by the counter Wolf kills Switzerland 2026/27 continuously updated.

Canton of Valais

The canton of Valais has become the spearhead of Swiss kill policy. From 1 September 2025 to 31 January 2026, 24 wolves were killed under proactive regulation. Three packs (Chablais, Salentin, Simplon) were cleared for complete removal, while for three further packs two thirds of the pups were shot. Together with the three reactive individual kills of summer 2025, the total comes to 27 wolves in a single season. A total of 75 wolves were identified in the canton in 2025, 57 of them new individuals (balance sheet of the Service for Hunting, Fishing and Wildlife, February 2026). For the 2026/27 period, Valais had submitted six applications by mid-October 2026, including four for the complete removal of the Augstbord, Nanz, Réchy-Anniviers and Arolla-Ferpècle packs.

More on this: Valais Wolf Report 2025/2026: Figures of a Massacre and Dossier: Valais wolf balance sheet

Canton of Grisons

In the 2025/26 regulation period, Grisons had a total of 35 wolves shot, and for the 2026/27 period the canton plans around 61 kills. Nature conservation organisations (WWF, Pro Natura) have lodged appeals against the kill orders. The core of the legal argument: the law requires proof that major damage has occurred or that people are endangered. The shooting of entire packs may only be used as a last resort, and local wolf populations must not be put at risk.

The cost of the kill policy

In Valais alone, wolf management consumed 13,390 working hours in 2025, according to the cantonal balance sheet (2024: 16,400), and 3.2 additional full-time posts were created under the 2025 to 2028 programme agreement. By Wild beim Wild's estimate (full costs of 60 to 80 francs per hour), this amounts to 0.8 to just over 1 million francs of taxpayers' money per year, around 35,000 francs per wolf killed. By comparison, compensation for livestock killed in Valais amounted to just over 170,000 francs in 2025 (2024: 227,000 francs), a fraction of the cost of the kill apparatus.

More on this: Massacre of the wolf population in Grisons and Hunting laws and oversight: why self-supervision is not enough

Germany: wolf to be brought under hunting law

In October 2025, Germany reported the wolf's «favourable conservation status» in the Atlantic and continental regions to the EU Commission. With 219 packs, 43 pairs and 14 resident single animals (monitoring year 2024/25, DBBW) and an estimated minimum population of around 2,000 wolves, Germany is one of the countries with the most wolves in Europe. The number of attacks on livestock fell by around a quarter in 2024 despite a growing population.

On 17 December 2025, the Federal Cabinet adopted a draft bill to include the wolf in the Federal Hunting Act. In early March 2026, the Bundestag passed the law with the votes of the CDU/CSU, AfD and SPD after a debate lasting half an hour, and on 27 March 2026 the Bundesrat gave its approval. The law provides for regional population management: in regions with a favourable conservation status, a hunting season applies from 1 July to 31 October, in the middle of the pups' rearing period. Wolves that overcome herd protection measures can be «removed with legal certainty», and in alpine areas where herd protection is deemed «unreasonable», even without prior protective measures.

Nature conservation associations reacted with sharp criticism: BUND rejected the draft as «too aggressive and a threat to the population», WWF spoke of a weakening of species protection, and NABU collected 92,000 signatures against it. The Deutsche Juristische Gesellschaft für Tierschutzrecht (German Legal Society for Animal Welfare Law) describes it as a law that «disregards the legal situation right up to the constitutional goal of animal welfare». Its compatibility with EU law is unclear, particularly for regions with an unfavourable conservation status.

In parallel, the federal states are pushing ahead with their own regulations: on 19 March 2026 Bavaria passed a state hunting act that includes the wolf and provides for quota kills; Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt had already presented their own drafts, while Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein are working on management plans. The German Hunting Association is demanding that up to 40 per cent of each year's young wolves be shot.

More on this: Germany turns the wolf into game, How Berlin and Bern are clearing the way for wolves to be killed and Germany declares the wolf 'favourable'

France: high kill quotas despite a stable population

For years France has pursued an aggressive removal policy through so-called 'tirs dérogatoires' (derogation kills). The national wolf plan 2024 to 2029 provides for an annual removal quota of 19 per cent of the estimated population. For 2025 this means the killing of 192 wolves out of an estimated population of around 1,013 animals. According to official statistics, 194 wolves were killed through derogation kills in 2024.

Remarkably, despite these high kill numbers, the number of wolf attacks on livestock rose by 4.6 per cent in 2024 compared with the previous year, and the number of animals killed by 10.6 per cent. The French model thus demonstrates empirically what conservationists have been stressing for years: mass killing does not solve the coexistence problem, but destabilises pack structures and can aggravate the problem of livestock losses.

More on this: Hunting myths: 12 claims you should scrutinise critically and Why recreational hunting fails as population control

Further European developments

Norway: The National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime, Økokrim, had charged ten men with illegal wolf hunting. On 10 September 2026 the district court of Romerike og Glåmdal sentenced all ten to unsuspended prison terms, the two shooters to 18 and 17 months with a lifelong hunting ban, and three of them additionally for attempted killing of a lynx (300 francs for a female wolf). The cases show how far disregard for protection laws extends in recreational hunting circles, and how a state governed by the rule of law can respond.

Baltic states: Latvia and Estonia maintain regular wolf hunting quotas with kill numbers in the hundreds per year, embedded in a long hunting-cultural tradition.

Italy: The wolf is strictly protected in Italy. The population is estimated at around 3,300 animals. Despite growing political demands for kills, there is as yet no regular hunting.

Spain: Since 2021, the wolf has been protected nationwide. The decision led to fierce conflicts with northern Spanish livestock keepers, who have traditionally regarded the wolf as a huntable species.

More on this: How Hunting Policy Is Escalating in Scandinavia

Herd protection: what actually works

The most effective measure against livestock kills is not shooting wolves, but consistently protecting the herds. This is shown by experience from European wolf policy as a whole.

Functioning herd protection concepts include sturdy electric fences at least 90 cm high with a close-to-ground finish, livestock guardian dogs (Maremmano, Pyrenean Mountain Dog or Kangal) that grow up with the herd and defend it independently, night pens for particularly vulnerable periods, shepherding and adapted grazing management in high-risk areas, and compensation systems that work quickly and without bureaucracy.

The example of the IG Herdenschutz plus Hund in Saxony-Anhalt shows what is possible: livestock keepers with 25,000 animals have recorded not a single wolf kill for many years, thanks to consistent herd protection. In Switzerland, an AGRIDEA study confirms that herd protection with dogs works well (According to an AGRIDEA study, herd protection with dogs works well). In Valais, the number of livestock killed fell from 401 (2023) to 341 (2024) and then to 318 (2025), which the canton also attributes to protective measures.

In the long term, the costs of herd protection are considerably lower than the costs of a policy of culling. In 2024, Germany invested around 23.4 million euros in herd protection measures. That sounds like a lot, but it is set against a population of more than 200 wolf packs and protects the farms concerned sustainably, unlike culls, which neither keep territories free nor prevent kills.

More on this: Herd protection in Switzerland: what works, what fails, Alternatives to recreational hunting: what really helps, without killing animals and Hunting and biodiversity: Does hunting really protect nature?

The Geneva model: wildlife management without recreational hunting

The canton of Geneva abolished recreational hunting by popular vote in 1974 and replaced it with professional, state-run wildlife management. For more than 50 years, the model has shown that wildlife populations can be regulated without recreational hunting. Where necessary, professional game wardens carry out targeted interventions on a scientific basis, transparently, under control and free from the vested interests of the recreational hunting lobby.

More on this: Abolition of recreational hunting and Dossier: Geneva and the hunting ban

What needs to change

Moratorium on proactive wolf culls: Switzerland suspends proactive regulation until an independent, scientific evaluation of the kill periods 2023/24 to 2025/26 is available. Kills without demonstrated damage contradict the principle of proportionality. Template motion: Moratorium on proactive wolf kills
Herd protection obligation before kill permit: No wolf kill is authorised until the farms concerned have demonstrably implemented all reasonable herd protection measures. The burden of proof lies with the applicant, not with the wolf. Template motion: Herd protection before wolf kills
Independent scientific population assessment: The setting of population targets and kill quotas is transferred to an independent expert commission that is not staffed by recreational hunting associations or cantonal hunters. Politically set reference values such as those in Sweden (170 instead of 300) must not find their way into Swiss management plans.
Full cost transparency of kill policy: The Confederation publishes annually the total costs of wolf management per canton, including personnel costs, working hours, helicopter deployments and legal proceedings, compared with the actual compensation paid for livestock losses.
No expansion of recreational hunting to the wolf: Wolf kills are carried out exclusively by professional game wardens, not by recreational hunters. The delegation of kills to licence or territorial hunters is ended.
Maintaining strict protection at federal level: Switzerland uses the latitude provided by the Bern Convention and national legislation to keep the wolf at the highest possible level of protection, regardless of the downgrading at European level.
Investment drive for herd protection: The Confederation doubles the funding for herd protection measures and makes their use a precondition for any compensation for livestock losses.

Arguments: Why “more recreational hunting” is not a solution

“The wolf population must be regulated”

As apex predators, wolves regulate their own population density. Pack size and reproduction rate adapt to the available food supply and territory. A politically set “target size” has no ecological basis; it serves a policy of appeasement towards the recreational hunting and agricultural lobbies.

“The favourable conservation status has been reached, so hunting is permitted”

The reporting of a “favourable conservation status” is politically contested and scientifically challenged in several countries. The ECJ has made clear that even where the conservation status is favourable, any deterioration must be prevented. A favourable status is not a licence for blanket hunting, but an obligation to preserve that status.

“Kills reduce livestock losses”

France proves the opposite: despite 194 wolves being killed in 2024, livestock losses rose. Scientific studies show that killing pack members destroys the social structure and produces lone animals, which turn to livestock more often than intact packs do. Herd protection is demonstrably more effective than kills.

“Recreational hunters make an important contribution to wolf management”

Recreational hunters act out of self-interest (reducing competition for game), not out of ecological responsibility. Professional wildlife wardens and veterinary authorities are better suited to science-based wildlife management. In Valais, 19 of 24 proactive kills were carried out by professional game wardens; the recreational hunters made only five kills, in a supporting role.

“The wolf endangers people”

In the past 50 years there has not been a single fatal wolf attack on humans in Western Europe. Studies show that wolves have a deeply ingrained fear of humans. The risk of being killed by a dog, a cow or a lightning strike is many times higher than the risk posed by a wolf.

More on this: The big bad wolf is afraid of you

“The rural population suffers because of the wolf”

The rural population suffers from structural change in agriculture, falling incomes and a lack of political support. The wolf is being instrumentalised as a scapegoat for larger societal problems. The actual damage caused by wolf attacks amounts to a fraction of the costs arising from recreational hunting accidents, game damage in forestry, or losses due to weather and disease.

“The Swedish model shows that wolf hunting works”

The Swedish model has failed. Courts stopped the 2026 wolf hunt because the authorities were unable to demonstrate a favourable conservation status. The politically lowered target figure of 170 wolves was criticised by the European Commission as scientifically untenable. Anyone who cites Sweden as a model must also acknowledge its legal defeats.

“Wolves belong under hunting law”

Inclusion under hunting law is not a technical necessity but a political concession to the recreational hunting lobby. It lowers the legal threshold for kills, creates hunting seasons and hands management over to recreational hunters, who are neither independent nor scientifically qualified. The German Legal Society for Animal Welfare Law (Deutsche Juristische Gesellschaft für Tierschutzrecht) describes the German law as a breach of the constitutional goal of animal welfare.

“Illegal kills show that the frustration is too great”

Illegal kills are criminal offences, not a legitimate expression of opinion. They do not show that protection is too strict, but that law enforcement and prevention are too weak. In Norway, ten men were sentenced to prison for illegal wolf hunting. In recreational hunting circles, the saying “shoot, shovel, shut up” circulates as a normalised attitude towards protected species.

“Coexistence is an illusion”

Coexistence is not a state but a process. It requires investment in herd protection, advice, compensation and public education. In regions that make these investments, living together works. Where politicians instead rely on kills, coexistence does indeed remain an illusion – but not because of the wolf, rather because of a lack of political will.

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Our Standard

The wolf belongs in Europe. Its return is a conservation success that is now being systematically undermined. This dossier documents how politicians, the farming lobby and recreational hunting associations are hollowing out the protection of the wolf, and why the answer is not “more kills” but better herd protection, independent science and a state governed by the rule of law that keeps its own promises of protection. The dossier is updated continuously as new developments require.

More on the topic of recreational hunting: in our Dossier on hunting in Switzerland we bring together fact checks, analyses and background reports.