The Wolf Is Not the Problem – It Is the Solution

While hobby hunters continue to claim they are “necessary for nature conservation”, science tells a different story: where wolves return, forests regenerate faster and more sustainably than where humans shoot.

In North America, Scandinavia, and increasingly in Switzerland as well, research shows that reintroduced wolves have profound positive effects on ecosystems. A recent report on Animals Around the Globe describes how wolves, through their mere presence, alter the behaviour of herbivores – and in doing so, heal entire landscapes.

Without natural predators, wildlife such as red deer or roe deer behave in entirely different ways: they overgraze young forests, browse on shoots, and prevent natural regeneration. But as soon as wolves return to an area, the behaviour of prey animals changes fundamentally.

Instead of roaming freely everywhere without concern, they avoid exposed locations – particularly riverbanks, valleys, and clearings. This allows young trees, shrubs, and plants to grow again. Aspens, willows, and poplars in particular benefit from this.

This vegetation stabilises soils, retains water, and promotes biodiversity. In short: wolves are key figures for living forests.

The Role of Recreational Hunting: Natural Predator or Cultural Myth?

The hunting lobby often argues that only through shooting can a “healthy wildlife balance” be maintained. Yet ecological data from areas with wolf presence refutes this:

• In regions with stable wolf packs, wildlife densities decrease without human intervention.
• Hunting pressure from humans leads to unnatural behavior – wildlife is constantly stressed and flees far distances.
• Hunting artificially maintains high population numbers, because feeding and management are practiced to guarantee “attractive game.”

In other words: hobby hunting does not replace nature – it disrupts it.

Grisons as an example: The wolf as a forestry aide

In Grisons the positive impact of wolves on protective forests is clearly visible. Since packs established themselves in the Calanda area, foresters have observed improved forest regeneration. Young firs and beeches are growing back, as they are browsed less frequently.

Forests are thereby better able to fulfil their protective functions – against avalanches, erosion and rockfall. It is therefore not a “problem wolf” at work here, but a forest caretaker on four paws.

Biodiversity instead of lead

The return of large predators such as the wolf brings back natural processes that had been disrupted for decades. Where the wolf lives,

• more trees grow,
• more bird species return,
• soils stabilise,
• and the CO₂ reservoir in the soil increases.

All of this – without human intervention, without forestry, without hunting.

Instead of stoking fear and responding to age-old myths with demands for culling, we should see the wolf for what it is: a more natural regulator, a landscape architect, and a symbol of functioning ecosystems.

Wolves do not need rifles to keep the forest in balance. Humans need wolves – so that forests can breathe again.

Further articles

• Wolves under constant fire: How Swiss hunting policy ignores science and ethics
• Protective forest: Hobby hunting creates the problems it claims to solve
• The wolf is not the problem – it is the solution
• Forest conversion: Paths to resilient mixed forests in the face of hunting
• Forest conversion at the Lukmanier Pass
• Hunting is not the solution for forest conversion
• Hobby hunters do not help forest conversion
• The conflict between forestry, hunting and wildlife