Germany: Wolf Pups in Politicians' Crosshairs

Those who read this issue merely as a rural culture war are missing the pattern.

In Switzerland, we have experienced for years how culling is sold as a supposed solution, even though it destabilizes packs, escalates conflicts, and conceals the real failure: inadequate prevention, insufficient livestock protection, political evasion. Exactly this dynamic now threatens to become institutionally normalized in Germany as well.

What the federal government is planning, and why it's so explosive

The Bundestag is dealing with a bill that would make the wolf make them «huntable» again by including them as a huntable species in the Federal Hunting Act. This sets a dangerous framework: a protected species becomes an object of hunting availability, including hunting seasons and culling logic.

To justify this, the federal government cites conflicts with livestock farming and reports around 1,100 attacks for 2024 with about 4,300 killed or injured farm animals. Additionally, high costs for herd protection and compensation are cited. These figures may be alarming, but they do not substitute for proper analysis. They fail to answer the central question: Which measures reliably reduce livestock kills without damaging the ecosystem and without setting a hunting spiral in motion?

The Animal Protection Association argues otherwise: wolves are thoroughly researched, ecologically relevant, and their return is a success of decades of conservation work. Instead of strengthening solutions, the situation is being escalated politically.

The most critical shift: hunting season when cubs are dependent

Particularly alarming is the point that the German Animal Protection Association specifically identifies: while an earlier draft still provided for autumn and winter as hunting season, the new proposal explicitly allows hunting between July and October.

This is the phase when cubs are still dependent. The Animal Protection Association describes that cubs are usually born in early May, are still nursing in summer, and are cared for by the pack. Precisely during this time, culling should become possible. Anyone labeling this as «management» is trying to linguistically defuse an ethical problem.

The association also refers to the hunting association wanting to «remove» young animals, meaning kill them. This is not just a framing problem. It is an attempt to normalize the killing of young animals as routine management.

For recreational hunters who so often boast of their so-called hunting ethics, this plan is particularly unconscionable. (German Animal Protection Association)

The legal window: Bern Convention and EU reclassification as leverage

This debate becomes politically possible because the wolf's protection status in the Bern Convention was downgraded from «strictly protected» to «protected» on March 7, 2025. The Bundestag text links this to an EU amendment (Directive (EU) 2025/1237 of June 17, 2025) that reclassifies the wolf within the FFH system.

Important: A reclassification does not automatically mean that cub hunting would be ethically or professionally justifiable. It primarily creates political leeway. And this leeway is now being exploited to the maximum.

Why this also affects Switzerland

Anyone looking at Switzerland recognizes the blueprint: it begins with «regulation», becomes permanent shooting, ends in an administrative practice that selectively uses facts and delegates responsibility downward. We have already documented this escalation, including the debate about wolf cubs, legal questions, and the political narrative of «inevitable culling».

• Wolf cubs in Switzerland under fire
• Wolves under constant fire: How Swiss hunting policy ignores science and ethics
• Illegal wolf hunting in Switzerland
• Hunting policy 2025: Wolf culling, trophy hunting and poaching in service of the lobby
• Moratorium or ban on wolf hunting

The lesson from this is uncomfortable: culling provides short-term headlines and the illusion of control. Prevention provides long-term effectiveness but little political harvest. This is precisely why the cub question is so central. When a society accepts that young animals may be «removed» during their dependency phase, the moral benchmark shifts permanently.

What is needed now: responsibility instead of scapegoating

A serious approach to wolf conflicts does not begin with hunting law, but with consistent prevention, clear standards for herd protection, transparent data evaluation and independent impact monitoring. The Animal Protection Association explicitly names «proven solutions» as alternatives for long-term coexistence. This is precisely where politics should invest, instead of choosing the easiest path: more guns, longer hunting seasons, more culls.

The crucial question is therefore not whether the wolf is «too much». The question is how much contempt for facts and ethical brutalization a modern society permits in its wildlife policy, just to buy short-term peace in the political arena.

Participation Campaign: Demand from your municipality a tax exemption request for federal and cantonal taxes due to the catastrophic policy of Federal Councillor Albert Rösti (SVP) following the recently approved culling of wolves in Switzerland. You can download the template letter here: https://wildbeimwild.com/ein-appell-fuer-eine-veraenderung-in-der-schweiz/