Science not politics should govern our acceptance of wolves
Illegally killed young female wolf in Poland (Jagna Jankowska)
The EU proposal for downgrading the protection of wolves has been widely condemned as lacking a scientific basis since it was underpinned by a poor consultation process, a subjective report that lacked any peer review, and by a rushed decision that was made behind closed doors. This populist proposal seems more to do with prejudice than any real scientific understanding of the ecology of wolves and our acceptance of them. If adopted, it could jeopardise the long-term ecological integrity of our wild nature, as it will make it harder if not impossible to reinstate wolves to Britain unless we decide for ourselves what level of protection we give wolves as we reinstate them
In an article about the separation between wolves and humans in modified landscapes I described the voluntary westward expansion of wolves across continental Europe, so that there is now a presence in every country, as the greatest natural experiment in reinstatement of trophic ecology (1). I noted that it should have been a big research question in Europe, since it was a great chance for a better understanding of how wolves have distributed, how they use landscapes in Europe, and what it said about transcontinental wildlife movement. However, a brief exploration of the literature then had not revealed many studies. Those studies have begun to appear in the literature, one such being an analysis of the spatial ecology of returning central European wolves as they establish new populations in human-modified landscapes.
More evidence of the spatial avoidance strategy that wolves adopt
Wolves from seven packs in six central European cross-border regions (Czechia, Austria, Germany, Poland, and Slovakia) were equipped with radio-collars, and their behavioural movement modes, home range sizes, as well as habitat selection, were quantified from their movement during tracking days in the years 2019-2023 (2). The 17 wolves could be divided into three main categories based on their movement modes: 10 showed a residential mode; five by either complete or incomplete dispersal; and two were floaters. Four of the five dispersing animals undertook long dispersal trips of between 222-309km, two of which completed dispersal and established new home ranges; and the last of the five made a series of shorter unfinished dispersal attempts with no new home range established. The two floaters roamed within their respective study areas with no evidence of any established home range. On the other hand, they often visited home ranges of other packs during their roaming, presumably to increase their chances of either joining an established pack or usurping a mate for breeding and forming their own pack, with the subsequent establishment of a new home range.
Home ranges can be seen as the territorial system that wolves establish as members of a pack. Wolves generally increase their home ranges during winter, especially in areas with migratory prey, but smaller home ranges are observed where ungulate prey remain abundant, as in central Europe. The average home range size in this study was 213km2, but which varied depending on whether wolves were breeding or non-breeding. There was also a seasonal pattern for breeding individuals, with smaller apparent home ranges during the reproduction phase when they had their cubs, but which got larger as the wolf cubs gained mobility. There was no specific pattern for non-breeders.
As for habitat selection, despite Central Europe often being described as a completely human-altered landscape, the wolves showed a clear preference for much less disturbed patches within the human-impacted landscape mosaic, with the average human density in the regions selected by wolves much lower than the average human density for the whole region. The data also showed that wolves almost always settled and used forested areas, regardless of landscape composition or study area type, and showed a general tendency during the early colonisation phase to avoid built-up areas and farmland. This probably also explains their increasing occurrence at higher elevations, as higher altitudes in these mountainous landscapes are typically forested and unoccupied by humans.
The findings on habitat selection again reinforce my view that an oft cited paper from 2014 was wrong in asserting that the recovery of wolves in Europe’s modern human-dominated landscapes proved that they coexisted with people rather than depend on wilderness, an inference anyway that was impossible to sustain from the gross mapping of the study (3). It also adds more evidence of the spatial avoidance strategy that wolves adopt, and which I have remarked on before, that wolves are as disinclined to come into conflict with people as we are with wolves, often combining temporal avoidance (being more active at night) with spatial avoidance ((1,4,5) and see (6,7)).
Population dynamics are a key part of understanding the dispersal and survival of wolves. Germany has had a policy of monitoring and identifying all territorial wolves and their status (single territorial wolf, territorial pair or pack) as well as whether reproduction occurred, over the 20 years following recolonization, and with genetic samples routinely collected (8). In an analysis of survival and reproduction of the German wolf population, this detailed genetic data allowed for individual recognition and monitoring of individual fate, as well as the assignment of individuals to wolf packs and territories (9). The dataset of the analysis included the fate of 1,054 wolves of which 466 were dead. The oldest recorded age of a wolf encountered in the study was 12.7yrs. Habitat suitability mapping was based on previous work on different land use types and human disturbance effects (e.g. forested areas, distance to roads or human density). Those individuals that survived until adulthood were born in territories with higher habitat suitability and lower local territory density (fewer wolf packs) than the average for all juveniles. Survival was lower for juveniles in winter and for subadult males in summer, and was probably associated with dispersal events. The experience of females was judged by the number of years the same breeding female had reproduced, and was on average 2.81yrs with an average of 3.72 cubs/litter. The study showed that the reproductive output of wolves was higher where both habitat suitability and the experience of females was higher.
The survival rates for wolves in this study mark Germany out as one of the populations with the highest recorded survival rates for the expansion phase, and which probably explains the rapid expansion of the population within the German landscape. The data highlighted a spatial pattern in survival and reproduction, with areas of better habitat suitability favouring faster population growth, making them sources for further population expansion. In terms of conservation measures, the authors suggested targeting low habitat suitability areas would have a strong population effect in the short term by boosting survival and reproduction of individuals, while long-term viability should be carefully planned with high suitability areas in mind. The belief was that carrying capacity had not yet been reached in Germany, and thus that survival rate may decrease in the future if the landscape becomes saturated.
A universal animus directed at wolves
While there is a focus on ecological studies of the expansion of wolves in Europe, the success of that expansion can regrettably be dependent on how people perceive and interact with wolves. Oppressively, there appears to be a universal animus directed at wolves, especially in the screaming headlines of the popular press, an example being in the Podkarpacie region in Poland where false information about the involvement of wolves in the death of a 64-year-old man circulated in the media across the country (10). In this anti-wolf propaganda, the assertion was that wolves had eaten human remains, and that they had possibly contributed to the man's death. However, the Regional Nature Conservator in nearby Rzeszów unequivocally stated that there was no evidence of wolves' involvement. This negative framing of the wolf gave free rein to the prejudice of hunters who sought to use a human tragedy to justify hunting down wolves. Reality is not the strong point of prejudice, although that prejudice against wolves is usually less sensational, predicated as it is on the loss of farm livestock. Repeated examinations show this to be a mostly insignificant factor compared to mortality due to disease and farmer neglect, but it fuels the illegal killing of wolves, such as the shooting in early November of a young female wolf near the town of Wolimierz in Poland, a country where the wolf is strictly protected but where there are 140 illegal killings each year (11). Workshop for All Beings (Pracownia na rzecz Wszystkich Istot) an ecological advocacy organisation in Poland, filed an application to be included among the entities exercising the rights of the injured party under Polish law with the intent of representing and bringing justice to that slaughtered female wolf, because it believes Poland is not adequately dealing with the illegal killings of wolves (12).
Illegal killings forestall the expansion and dispersion of wolves into new territories and put at risk the development of self-sustaining populations, as has been demonstrated during the return of the wolf to Denmark as a result of expansion and dispersion in Germany. The annual survival rates of wolves in Denmark are much lower than that in Germany, as shown by a study that analysed mortality and disappearance rates of 35 wolves in the heavily cultivated and densely populated Jutland peninsula through which wolves disperse from Germany into Denmark (13). The authors concluded that this area was a population sink due to the unexplained disappearance of wolves, most likely from illegal killing, so that the Danish wolf population only survived because it is supported by continuing inward dispersal of wolves from Germany. When I first wrote about this study, I went through the various legislation that strictly protected the wolf in Denmark, and noted that the Danish Environmental Protection Agency had sought to proactively protect established breeding pairs and their young offspring (14). There was concern that population growth may be held back by lack of female wolves successfully passing through that danger area. I hoped then that the Danish Environmental Protection Agency was considering how to reduce the illegal killing in south Jutland.
Denmark is but one country on the leading edge of westward expansion of wolves, and similar considerations will apply to the Netherlands and Belgium that are also in the process of regaining a wolf presence. The issue, however, is wider than just these individual countries. A genetic study on the German, Polish and Iberian populations revealed a method to assess the effective population size needed to ensure the viability of wolves in the various subpopulations that exist in Europe (15). Europe has 10 regional wolf subpopulations, but in this study, the Dinaric subpopulation was grouped with the Balkan and Carpathian subpopulations, and the Alpine was grouped with the Italian population, as these groupings are interconnected by migration and thus function as genetically linked metapopulations. The outcome of the assessment was that half of the European wolf populations do not yet fulfil this criterion for reproductive success, and this included the Iberian, Central European and Scandinavian populations.
A total change of position in the EU
If a number of wolf populations in Europe have yet to achieve the numbers needed to ensure reproductive success, why then did the European Commission set out in September last year with a consultation to gather evidence ostensibly as a conservation status review, but which the Commission said, on the basis of the data collected, it would decide on “a proposal to modify, where appropriate, the status of protection of the wolf within the EU and to update the legal framework” (16). In response, a letter was sent to the President of the European Union on behalf of eight environmental and animal protection organisations, protesting at the misleading information on wolves in the press release (17). The contested points were that the assertion that the concentration of wolf packs had become a danger for livestock and potentially for humans was not based on science; that damage to livestock was often linked to the lack of adequate supervision and/or physical protection; and that the consultation breached the European Commission’s Better Regulation rules in that 18 days was not a reasonable period in which to make informed and effective contributions. As a follow up, an open letter was sent to the President of the European Union on behalf of 293 environmental and animal protection organisations in which there was concern that a policy decision on such a crucial issue was being prepared in an untransparent manner based on an irregular consultation process; and that the discussion of this issue had so far been largely dominated and driven by farming industry and hunting interest representatives, who were keen to position themselves as speaking on behalf of rural communities, when in reality an independent survey carried out in November 2023 in 10 Member States showed there was a high degree of support among rural communities for the strict protection of wolves in the EU (18). They believed that unless there was substantial new science-based evidence gathered by the European Commission, then the science and public opinion was clear that modification of the protection status of the wolf was not justified.
This stance from the Commission seemed a total change of position from when I wrote two years ago about the European Commission being dismissive of a resolution in the European Parliament that had sought to portray an adverse situation between wolves and livestock (14). A Commissioner noted at the time that while the wolf was no longer at risk of extinction in Europe, it had not yet achieved a favourable conservation status in most EU Member States. The EU subsequently voted as a bloc against a resolution from Switzerland to downgrade the strict protection of wolves under the Bern Convention. You may wonder why the Commission’s comprehensive Response on the resolution sent to the European Parliament on 7 March 2023, and which set out its policy line, is hard to track down now – there is a link to an unreadable version, but I found a copy of it on the website of the Frisian National Party, a political party in the Dutch province of Friesland (19). There is also a dead link to it in a news announcement in June last year from the Directorate-General for Environment of the European Commission (20). This news announcement also said that the Commission was currently carrying out an in-depth analysis of all available scientific and technical data concerning the wolf situation in the EU, with results expected at the end 2023. That prior analysis had been mentioned in the later September call for evidence gathering (see above) but it was explained there that it had not provided a full picture sufficient for the Commission to design further actions, and hence why the Commission was broadening the consultation. A cynic might suggest that this scientific and technical data didn’t meet expectations in giving the answer that was wanted, whereas the broadened consultation in September last year allowed for any subjective opinion to be submitted.
How it got to this turnaround is the subject of possibly undue political influence, but given the public speculation about it (21-23) it came as no surprise that in December last year, when the collected evidence was published, that the European Commission asserted that its “in-depth analysis” of new data on wolf populations and impact was sufficient to justify proposing a change in the status of wolves in the EU from strictly protected to protected, and that the proposal corresponded “largely to the position that the European Parliament expressed in its resolution of 24 November 2022” the resolution that the Commission had been dismissive of (see above)(24). It would need a change in the protected status under the Bern Convention as a precondition for any similar change to its status at the EU level. Before the proposal could be lodged for consideration under the Convention, it would first need approval by ministers from EU Member States meeting in the Council of the European Union.
I read the “in-depth analysis” of this new data and there is no such recommendation for downgrading protection, but it reiterates what the European Commission had said in response to the EU parliament motion, that the wolf had not yet achieved a favourable conservation status in most EU Member States - “Around half (18) were favourable (FV), while the other half (19) were unfavourable (with 16 unfavourable-inadequate (U1) and three unfavourable-bad (U2)), and two unknown (XX). Compared to the previous reporting period (2007-2012), FV assessments decreased slightly from 19 to 18. The conservation status of the wolf under the Habitats Directive is not uniform across the EU” (25). The report observed that “on a large scale, the impact of wolves on livestock in the EU is very small. Considering that there are 60 million sheep in the EU (Eurostat 2022), the level of sheep depredation by wolves represents an annual killing of 0.065%”. It noted that predation was lower in the areas where large carnivore presence had been continuous compared to areas where they disappeared and returned in the last 50 years, and that the availability of natural prey, landscape characteristics and the use of protection measures also shaped the incidence of damage to livestock. As you may expect, response to the proposal was swift, WWF describing it as an “outrageous announcement that had no scientific justification”, and intimating that it was a sacrifice of conservation success for political gain (26). They too were puzzled by the about turn, questioning how much the situation could have changed in just one year since the EU Parliament resolution. It said the proposal sabotaged the EU’s role as the reliable and leading partner in international fora and questioned the authenticity of its efforts to achieve global biodiversity goals. ClientEarth later made a complaint against the European Commission to the European Ombudsman about how it carried out the data collection on the impact of the wolf population in the European Union (27).
The decision was made that day, allegedly behind closed doors
I’m not sure why it took so long, nine months, before the ministers from EU Member States meeting in the Council of the European Union got to vote on the proposal to downgrade protection. There was evidence that environment ministers from Slovakia, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Spain, Ireland, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Austria, Portugal, Romania and Slovenia had urged the Commission not to seek a downgrade in the protection of the wolf after the EU parliament resolution (28). Nevertheless, after the proposal had been announced, there appeared to have been pressure applied to rush a decision, but that there had been a number of EU member states asking for more scientific data, as the issue wasn’t yet “mature enough to have a vote on it” (22). It seems a particularly opaque process and I am at a loss to document how It came about, but see later. A joint statement by 308 civil society and animal welfare organisations was issued on 19 September this year urging EU Member States to reject the European Commission's proposal to weaken the protection status of wolves under the Bern Convention, suggesting that the vote was imminent (29). As it was, I read reports on 25 September, that the decision was made that day, allegedly behind closed doors, when Germany unexpectedly changed its position from abstention to support at the last minute (30, 31). This paved the way for the proposal to be formally adopted at the Council of the European Union meeting the next day, with an indication that only Ireland and Spain intended to vote against the proposal, and with a few smaller member states planning to abstain (32). The fear was that the downgrading of protection would open the door to wolf culling as a false solution to livestock predation, which runs counter to Europe’s commitment to safeguard and restore biodiversity (33). In contrast, as you would expect, the European People’s Party Group in the European Parliament was jubilant, that it was the years of persistent pressure from the Group that got EU Member States to take the first steps to adjust the protection status of wolves in Europe, implying it would give them more freedom to implement effective management plans in bringing wolf populations under control, which translates to slaughtering them (34). The European People’s Party Group was one of the more vociferous wolf-hating contributors to the EU parliament resolution in 2022 (14) and you may not be surprised that the President of the European Commission is associated with the Group, being its candidate for that post (35).
Sure enough, the official proposal was published on the 26 September and which again claimed that the “in-depth analysis of the status of the wolf in the Union from 2023 provide adequate evidence in support of adapting the protection status of the wolf under the Bern Convention" (36). Article 2 of the decision to approve the proposal targeted the 44th Standing Committee meeting of the Bern Convention in early December for discussion of the proposal. Article 3 allowed for representatives of the EU, in consultation with Member States during on-the-spot coordination meetings, to accept amendments to the proposal during the Standing Committee meeting without going back to the Council of the European Union for further decision. The European Commission just wanted it to get done. I see no official evidence of the meetings and attendance on the 25 and 26 September, or any voting record, and it is likely that this was withheld, as it was judged that the Council was not acting in its capacity of legislator and thus did not have to release this information – hence why the perception is that these meetings are held behind closed doors (37). However, where the Council is not acting as legislator, it could have made public the results of votes and explanations of vote if there was a unanimous decision by Council to do so. As if by magic, the EU submitted the amendment proposal letter to the Bern Convention the very next day, 27 September (38) the Bern Convention subsequently providing a summary of questions and answers (39). The Standing Committee meeting will take place between 2-6 December in Strasbourg this year, and the EU proposal is Agenda Item 4.2 (40). The Draft Plan for discussion of the Agenda indicates that this is tabled as the first item on the morning of the 3rd December (see pg.12 in (40). Ironically, there is also to be an information session that morning on the iinvolvement of the Bern Convention Secretariat in activities to do with Large Carnivores, and on the preparations of the meeting scheduled for next year of the Group of Experts on Large Carnivores (see Agenda Item 5.3 in (40)). There is a webpage of the meeting that will be updated with the adopted texts before the report of the meeting is finally released (41).
The downlisting proposal appeared to be premature and faulty
Green Impact, an Italian environmental organisation, along with three others, sent an open letter in October to the Secretary General of the Bern Convention explaining the scientific flaws in the EU proposal; pointed to the poor standard of the new data report that had not been peer-reviewed and in which paradoxically several data could be used to support the case for more wolf protection rather than less; and called for removal of the proposal from the Agenda of the forthcoming December Standing Committee meeting of the Bern Convention (42). In mid-November, the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe, a Specialist Group within the Species Survival Commission of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, put out a statement on the proposed downlisting of the wolf under the Bern Convention and the EU Habitats Directive (43). The Initiative made the point that there was little change in the new data report compared to its own report that had been the basis of refusal of the Switzerland’s proposal to downgrade protection under the Bern Convention in 2022. It noted that there was already the ability under the Convention to limit serious livestock damage, and that the deeper social conflicts that appear to be the real drivers of the present discussions over wolf management (rather than livestock damages as such) were unlikely to be resolved by downlisting. It said there was a clear need to develop, before any downlisting decisions regarding the wolf or other species were taken, a standardized and science-based framework for listing, downlisting and delisting, to ensure that decisions were taken in a “coherent and transparent manner, whereby the influence on the process of politicization and lobbying is minimized”. It observed that downlisting must not result in a reduction of the current size, range and connectivity of wolf populations, which would, after all, “be at odds with the objectives, obligations and logic of the different protection regimes” of the Bern Convention and EU habitats Directive. The Initiative considered that the downlisting proposal appeared to be premature and faulty, and did not recommend its adoption.
I would note that this statement from the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe referenced a recommendation adopted by the Standing Committee in 1997 that was to be taken into account when making proposals to amend strict protection under the Bern Convention, that they take place in a “coherent manner, based on best available science”. The recommendation also contained guidelines while making proposals for amendment and during their adoption, but which the Initiative only partially addressed. The first related to threats and required taking into account the vulnerability of the species to changes in its habitat, the trends and variations in population level and its vulnerability to a possible non sustainable use (44). This was hardly addressed in the proposal voted on in the Council of the European Union that merely said that the species has “successfully recovered across the European continent, with a significant expansion of its range” and then quoted a gross figure for the total number of wolves in the EU in 2023 (36). The proposal as sent to the Bern Convention said the same (38) but while it admitted that the assessment in 2022 by the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe had identified vulnerable populations due to their limited size, it did not address that the “in-depth analysis” had also noted this (see above). Thus, it can hardly be said that the wolf has “successfully recovered across the European continent” since there are still areas that have yet to attain a large enough population to be self-sustaining and which are interconnected with other populations to ensure genetic interchange. The second element of the guidelines relates to the ecological role of the species, and particularly its “position or role in the food chain”, that role potentially becoming threatened by their exploitation. Neither version of the proposal addressed the significance of the position of wolves in trophic ecology. This is a serious omission. It demonstrates a lack of scientific credibility of the proposal.
For my own part, I responded to a call from ScienceforWolves to sign letters to the Secretary General of the Bern Convention that expressed concern and objection to the European Union’s decision to support the European Commission’s proposal to seek to downgrade the protection status of the wolf from Appendix II to III under the Bern Convention (45). This was a call to scientists to support the need for the conservation policies for the wolf in Europe to remain founded on science and not politics. One statement highlighted the case for the wolf as a species, the other highlighted the broader implications on its ecological recovery. I signed both. The two scientific statements are open for signing until the end of November, with the intention of them being delivered to the Secretary General of the Bern Convention on 1 December 2024. As I write, the two statements have garnered over 290 signatories from scientists, ecologists, and graduate students from across Europe, as well as from America, Canada, Japan, and Australia (46.47). The two statements are similar in their repudiation of the proposal having been science based, and differ only in emphasis.
In the statement on the conservation of the species, it is noted that the proposal failed to recognise the variable conservation status at population level, and ignored the genetic risks associated with culling and killing, especially in areas where numbers were still relatively low, the consideration being that genetic health maintained by gene flow among populations is critical for the species' long-term survival ((46) and see above). Delisting wolves would pave the way for governments to implement more aggressive, random management policies, as well as increasing the prevalence of illegal and retaliatory killing, and thus potentially risked a total disappearance of population in some areas, which would be incompatible with legal obligations to maintain a healthy, viable wolf population. It noted that culling wolves to mitigate livestock predation was not a long term or ethical solution, as it disrupted population structures, scattering individuals into recently cleared areas, leading to more conflict, not less. The statement on ecological recovery made the distinction between assessing populations in each spatial unit rather than at a continental scale, and where the interconnectivity of species, ecosystems and processes indicated a complexity that took in range and expansion, and that recognised that functioning ecological systems depend on the integrity of ecological networks and the interactivity between species (47). It noted that by seeking alternative approaches to the bluntness of population control, more research can be conducted, observing the impact of restoring apex predators in degraded landscapes, which along with other restorative considerations, may help improve the dire statistics regarding ecosystem health, and aid the reversal of negative trends overall. It was also noted that removing wolves from Appendix II of the Bern Convention would not only mean that hunting was allowed, but it would also mean repealing the ban on deliberate disturbance during the breeding season, as well as the ban on destroying breeding sites, the consequences of these having not been discussed in the EU.
It would be revealing if EU member states voted separately from each other
As much as I want to be, I am not optimistic about the outcome of these appeals to the Secretary General of the Bern Convention when I am uncertain whether there is a procedure for removing a proposal once it has been accepted for the agenda (see Rules of Procedure (48)). This is annoying, since the Bureau of the Standing Committee of the Bern Convention, which takes administrative and organisational decisions in between meetings of the Standing Committee (49) had cause to be critical in September of the new wolf culling policy in Switzerland after a complaint had been made by CHWolf, a Swiss wolf advocacy organisation (50) and which I had cause to comment on (51). It is the case that this critique will be an agenda item at the Standing Committee meeting where the parties to the complaint are invited to present an update report, the Committee then being tasked to discuss the case-file of the complaint and decide on its possible follow up, as it will also for a complaint made about the wolf culling policy in Norway (see under Agenda Item 6.2 in (40). Logic tells you that since these discussions about the complaints of breaches in strict protection of the wolf in Norway (52) and Switzerland (53) are scheduled later in the agenda for the morning of 5th December (see pg. 13 in (40)) and thus will come after the vote is taken on downgrading its protection, then they will likely be superseded and redundant.
As it is, we won’t get to hear what the discussion on the proposal to downgrade was anyway as the Standing Committee meetings are closed, and meeting reports are brief and only made public a few weeks after the meeting (39) but I suspect that the result of the vote will quickly leak out. I mentioned above that the EU voted against as a bloc the last time a proposal came up in the Standing Committee to downgrade the protection of the wolf. Since a two-thirds majority of Parties to the Convention is needed for a proposed amendment to be adopted (i.e. 34) I was happy that the 27 votes allocated to the EU (39) made that difficult to achieve (14). Now that the intent is to use that bloc vote to support downgrading, I feel we ought to know how many EU member states opposed the proposal when it was discussed behind closed doors and the vote not revealed (see above).
While I dread that it is very likely that the EU will get that two-thirds vote in the Standing Committee to downgrade protection under the Bern Convention, it would be revealing if EU member states voted separately from each other. There is good reason for this. Some member states on joining the EU were allowed exceptions under the Habitats Directive for strict protection for parts or all of their wolf population, applying only a lower protection (look under Canis lupus in Annexes II, IV, and V in (54)). Recently, however, three countries gave strict protection to all of their wolves irrespective of a listing in the Habitats Directive under a lower protection category. Thus, wolves in Slovakia were protected year-round when a decree in 2021 added them to a list of protected animals ((55) and see Annex 5 under section 3 in (56)). In Spain, the move to ban hunting of wolves was instigated by the Association for the Conservation and Study of the Iberian Wolf (Asociación para la Conservación y Estudio del Lobo Ibérico) a wolf advocacy organisation in Spain, that successfully used a law from 2007 whereby any citizen or association can promote the inclusion of a species in one of the specific categories of protection, in this case the List of Wild Species under Special Protection Regime that wolves were added to in 2021 (57-59). Through a regulation in 2016 from the Minister of Environment, Poland added wolves to the schedule (Annex 1) of strict protection under Article 49 of its Act of 2004 on the protection of nature (60,61). I should point out that Poland, Slovakia and Spain also had reservations on strict protection under the Bern Convention (62) but at least Article 12 of that Convention allows for Contracting Parties to change their minds and adopt stricter measures for the conservation of wild fauna than they contract to under the Convention (63). The Convention allows for Contracting Parties to withdraw reservations (Article 22.4 in (63)) and requests that the Standing Committee be notified of species receiving strict protection on its territory, but which have not been included in Appendix II (Article 11.3 in (63)).
What if more countries set their own level of protection, if the EU proposal to downgrade protection under Bern Convention is adopted, paving the way for downgrading protection under the Habitats Directive? Would there really be any form of coercion possible on a country if it chose to strictly protect rather than allow slaughter of wolves? When will we ever take the prejudice and populistic proposals out of our relation with wolves, and instead rely on what the science tells us about their ecology and our acceptance of their presence (59)?
Killings forestall the expansion and dispersion of wolves into new territories
I am devastated by this turn of events, not only for the lives of wolves in Europe being so cheaply regarded, but also that it will make it much harder if not impossible to reinstate wolves to Britain since, while we are no longer covered by the Habitats Directive, we are a Contracting Party to the Bern Convention. As I wrote above, killings forestall the expansion and dispersion of wolves into new territories and put at risk the development of self-sustaining populations, the key factors of which are that the wolves be self-sustaining demographically and ecologically; be genetically robust; have healthy populations; have representative populations distributed across the historical range in ecologically representative settings; have replicate populations within each ecological setting; and be resilient across the range (64). There is an unwarranted sense of entitlement among rural communities here to persecute any species that is inconvenient to land users (see article and comments below in (65)). It has a track record of prejudiced intolerance that I have commented on before - the delay in implementing strict protection of beaver in Scotland, once it had been considered to have been reinstated, led to large areas being culled out, leaving vacant territories so that there was a complete absence of fresh beaver signs when the territories were re-surveyed (66). It will not be about a delay in strict protection that will see the impossibility of wolves being reinstated as they are slaughtered with impunity, because if this EU proposal to downgrade is adopted, there will not be that strict protection, and which has been the reason why wolves have been able to successfully disperse out of their refuges in Continental Europe and return to significant parts of their former native range.
We lost our ability to influence nature policy in the EU when we left. Nevertheless, the UK appeared to support the EU last time when it voted against downgrading the protection of wolves in 2022, or was it an independent position that our government took, based on scientific merits (67)? I hope it was the latter, because there is no imperative in supporting the EU when it has got the science very wrong, and which jeopardises the long-term ecological integrity of our wild nature. Can we but hope that the UK votes against the EU proposal and, if it regrettably gets adopted, that the UK recognises the necessity of strictly protecting wolves if they are to be successfully reinstated here, and adopts stricter measures for the protection of wolves than will be provided for under an amended Bern Convention.
Mark Fisher 25, 29 November 2024
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http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/ecological_flow.htm
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http://self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/spec_reintro.htm
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url:www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/wolves_science.htm
www.self-willed-land.org.uk mark.fisher@self-willed-land.org.uk