States meeting within the Berne Convention voted to downgrade the wolf from “strictly protected” to “protected” species. In France, prefects already benefit from exemptions, authorizing the slaughter of 19% of the population each year.
The objective is to better protect livestock in a context of increasing wolf populations. This Tuesday, December 3, around fifty countries agreed on Tuesday in Strasbourg to lower the level of protection of wolves in Europe.
The Bern Convention, which ensures the protection of wildlife, approved a downlisting of the species, which will go from “strictly protected” to “protected”. This could make it possible to relax the legislation surrounding the slaughter of this animal and thus its protection.
The wolf, which was exterminated at the beginning of the 20th century in several countries, has made a comeback in recent years, arousing the fear of breeders who denounce attacks on herds.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed “important news for our rural communities and our livestock farmers”. But many organizations denounced a “political and scientifically unfounded” decision, during a press conference of several associations in Paris.
• What are the regulations today?
The wolf had completely disappeared in France. At European level, the wolf is protected. Until now, the Berne Convention placed the canine under the status of “strictly protected species”, which prohibited its slaughter.
But there are exemptions. Since 2004, France has used the provisions of the European Habitats-Fauna-Flora directive and authorizes under certain conditions that wolves can be killed following damage to herds. It is the prefects who can issue such orders, within a strictly defined framework.
Today, in France, the law authorizes the killing of 19% of the wolf population each year. “In 2024, 201 wolves out of the 209 authorized have already been killed,” Denis Doublet, the wolf representative of the Ferus association, told Var-Matin.
• Are we going to kill more wolves now?
“The amendment will enter into force in three months, unless at least one third of the parties to the Berne Convention (17) oppose it,” explained the Council of Europe. Otherwise, the decision will enter into force only in those countries that have not raised objections.
In the European Union, it will then have to be transposed into the Habitats Directive, under which most wolf populations in Europe benefit from strict protection, with possibilities for derogation.
The declassification of the wolf in Europe will above all make it possible to generalize in other countries what is already done in France by derogation, that is to say authorizing more shooting than what is really authorized.
“The wolf remains a protected species,” underlined the Minister of Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, in a statement to AFP. “And any destruction will remain, as today, very supervised,” she assured.
“We will not be able to start hunting wolves without any framework,” explained the program director of WWF-France, Yann Laurans, but this decision will make it possible “to generalize the possibility of shooting and killing wolves, according to rules which must be determined nationally.
In France therefore, the vote of the Berne Convention “is not going to change much”, predicts Dominique Humbert, president of the Wolf Observatory.
This downgrading would above all allow administrative simplification to facilitate shooting against wolves, in particular by paving the way for a modification of the EU directive. This involves more easily granting exemptions to kill wolves considered to be a threat to farmers' livestock.
• What are the reactions?
However, this decision worries many specialists. “First, the signal given can be understood as meaning that the species is doing well and that it is developing such that we can 'hit' its numbers, which would clearly risk increasing the illegal destruction of wolves. “, Jean-David Abel, in charge of the wolf file at France Nature Environnement, told Libération.
Wolf defenders fear that this decision will open a “Pandora's box” and that the wolf will be hunted like other species and will once again become endangered. “It was just starting to get better for the wolf,” lamented Daniel Thonon, of the LPO. “The survival rate is already low: less than two-thirds of adults survive, and two-thirds of young die within a year.” Rather than shooting, environmentalists recommend learning to live with wolves.
“The human presence is very dissuasive,” assures Bertrand Sicard, president of Ferus, an association for the defense of large predators. “You have to learn to scare him, to scare him.”
According to specialists, the shooting is even “counterproductive”, because it disorganizes the packs and creates “more solitary individuals, who turn towards easier prey, namely livestock”.
A downlisting of the wolf will have “no positive consequences on the livestock of breeders in France and Europe”, assured the co-founder of the Wolf Observatory, Jean-Luc Valérie.
Electric fences, protection dogs like patous, surveillance, volunteer help… Organizations are calling for people to turn instead to alternative protection measures.
In France, the president of the FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau, welcomed “a strong signal to finally make it possible to regulate lupine populations”, in a statement. For his part, the president of the European Hunters Federation also welcomed the decision, reports Euronews.
• What is the situation of the wolf today in Europe?
In the European Union, which claims to be based on “an in-depth analysis of the status of carnivores on its territory”, the number of wolves was estimated at 20,300 individuals in 2023. A figure which has increased significantly over a decade. Mostly they are found in the Balkans, Nordic countries, Italy and Spain. In France, this figure is estimated at 1,003, down 9% over one year.
Speaking to France Info, Maud Lelièvre, president of the French committee of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), indicates that data from “the European Commission itself, wolves have killed 0.065% of the European sheep population” or a “very very small quantity”, even if “obviously for the breeders concerned, it is always important”. In terms of damage to farms, the damage is less significant than that caused by, for example, deer or wild boars.
“There does not appear to have been a notable increase in livestock damage caused by wolves since 2022, and the same goes for public safety risks,” Libération reports.
“Nine species of wolves in Europe, six are classified as vulnerable or near-threatened”, according to the “IUCN species barometer which indicates the risk of species extinction”.
