Wolf protection reduced in Europe. Is biodiversity at stake?

In December, the Standing Committee of the Bern Convention voted to downgrade its status, accepting a controversial EU proposal. A proposal in fact supported by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, after a wolf killed her pony in 2022.

The wolf remains a “protected species”, but Member States will now have more flexibility to cull it. Farmers have long been calling for less stringent rules on culling. For the environmental associations, however, this is a blow to biodiversity, with no scientific basis.

There are more than 20,000 wolves in the European Union today, a population that has almost doubled in the last 10 years. Last century, this species was hunted almost to extinction. But in 1979, the Bern Convention - the first international treaty for the conservation of wildlife and habitats - declared the wolf a “strictly protected species”. 

Thanks to protection policies, the wolf is back. This achievement is considered one of Europe's greatest successes in wildlife conservation. Success, however, has come at a price. Every year, at least 65,500 farm animals are killed in the EU and member states spend almost 19 million euros a year on compensation. 

Yet, the use of preventive measures has paid off and in several regions livestock attacks have decreased. As for humans, there have been no fatal assaults in Europe for 40 years.

In France, the wolf had been totally eradicated in 1937 following an intensive hunting policy. The first specimens reappeared by natural recolonisation in 1992, arriving from Italy. Today there are more than a thousand wolves in France.

Eric Vallier, a farmer in the Vercors Regional Park, took over his farm from his parents in 1997. Since then it has suffered four attacks and he has lost several