- In recent days, the Association I am not afraid of the wolf, together with the European organizations that make up the European Alliance for Wolf Conservation (EAWC), sent a letter to the members of the Bern Convention regarding the proposed downgrading that will be discussed in the coming days. Here is the full text
FROM: IO NON HO PAURA DEL LUPO APS / BORGOTARO / ITALY
On behalf of the European Alliance for Wolf Conservation (EAWC), we address you regarding the European Union (EU) proposal to downgrade the protection of the wolf in the Bern Convention during the 44th meeting of the Standing Committee, which will be held from 2 to 6 December 2024.
The EU has submitted a proposal to reduce the protection status of the wolf in the Bern Convention from “strictly protected” (Annex II) to “protected” (Annex III). EAWC strongly urges you not to support this proposal, as it is not based on science and ignores the significant negative consequences that downgrading the protection status of the wolf could entail.
We would like to draw your attention to the fact that, although the number of wolves has increased in some EU Member States, European wolves do not constitute a single population, but are fragmented into nine distinct populations. Six of these nine populations are still threatened according to the IUCN Red List criteria, while only three are not considered threatened (category “Least Concern”).
Until a few years ago, there were ten wolf populations in Europe, but wolves have disappeared in southern Spain due to high levels of poaching and inbreeding, despite being a strictly protected species.
In particular, the Scandinavian wolf population is highly threatened (classified as “vulnerable”) due to the high level of inbreeding and the low number of individuals. Despite this, the Swedish government has decided to reduce the number of wolves from 300 to 170, despite the species being considered “threatened” in the Swedish Red List. Furthermore, Norway has a very aggressive culling policy, keeping the number of wolves between 40 and 60 individuals, resulting in the wolf being considered “critically endangered” in the country. In Finland, the southern wolf population shows severe signs of inbreeding, while in the reindeer herding area of Lapland (where wolves have little protection) no wolf packs are allowed, and exemptions for culling are systematically granted by the authorities. This situation has created a genetic bottleneck in northern Finland, preventing wolves from migrating to and from Sweden or Norway, with serious consequences for the genetic health of Finnish and Scandinavian wolf populations. If this situation continues, the Scandinavian wolf population is at risk of extinction in the next 10-20 years.
There are many reasons to believe that a weakening of the wolf’s protection status at the European level could pave the way for more liberalized lethal management policies, with serious consequences for the wolf across Europe. This would not only make it more difficult to promote non-lethal solutions to manage potential conflicts, but would also hinder the possibility of realizing human-wolf coexistence within the timeframe foreseen by the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework. As the cases of Finnish Lapland and Norway demonstrate, if lethal measures are the main tool to address problematic situations, it is difficult to imagine how this could lead to the implementation of preventive measures and an increase in acceptance of wolves and other large carnivores.
The European Commission has ignored the protests of around 300 European environmental, nature and animal welfare associations against the downgrading of protection, as well as scientific reports, including the one entitled “The situation of the wolf (Canis lupus) in the European Union. An in-depth analysis”. This report, commissioned by the European Commission itself, formed the basis for the proposal to downgrade the wolf’s conservation status. However, the content of the report does not generally support the downgrading of the wolf’s protection status. On the contrary, most of the information in the report supports maintaining the current level of protection.
The European Commission’s main justification for the downgrading is that it must be possible to regulate the wolf population in Europe to protect livestock. However, the Alliance points out that the current protection status already allows exceptions on a case-by-case basis. If the EU were to open the door to regulating wolf populations, this would lead to ongoing costs for lethal control, which would ultimately be higher than adopting non-lethal solutions. Furthermore, there is little scientific evidence that culling reduces livestock losses in the long term. On the contrary, there is a lot of scientific evidence that killing wolves is counterproductive. Indeed, when one or both parents of a family group are killed before the cubs have learned to hunt natural prey, the young are forced to turn to easier prey, such as livestock. As a result, the number of attacks on livestock may increase due to the weakening and disintegration of wolf families.
Studies in Idaho, USA, where most wolves were killed within two years, showed only a marginal decrease in livestock attacks in subsequent years. In Slovakia, no correlation was found between wolf population control and the number of livestock attacks.
The recent statement by the Large Carnivore Initiative in Europe (LCIE) on the proposed downlisting of the wolf in the Bern Convention stresses that, at this stage, a general downlisting of the wolf across the continent does not seem justified. The LCIE recommends against adopting the EU proposal.
The EAWC believes that there has been insufficient attention, both politically and practically, to adopting non-lethal measures to protect livestock from wolf attacks. The answer to the problem is not to cull wolves, but to implement non-lethal measures, such as fences, guard dogs, shepherds or a combination of these methods.
The EAWC urges you to vote against the European Union proposal to downgrade the legal protection status of the wolf from Annex II (strictly protected) to Annex III (protected) in the Bern Convention, during the 44th meeting of the Standing Committee to be held in Strasbourg from 2 to 6 December 2024.
