A European decision weakens the protection of wolves

Coincidentally, the Council of Europe and the Berne Convention communicated this Tuesday that the 49 member states had decided to downgrade the protection status of the wolf in the near future, in order to “better protect livestock in a context of ‘increase in the wolf population’. This is exactly what a motion debated this morning in the Council of States asked for.

It was State Councilor Mathilde Crevoisier Crelier (PS/JU) who revealed this decision: “We learned in breaking news,” she declared, that the standing committee of the Berne Convention accepted, this very morning, as we speak of it, this demotion.”

The decision of the standing committee is that the wolf will no longer be a “strictly protected” species, within the meaning of Annex 2 of the Berne Convention relating to the conservation of European wildlife and natural habitats, but a “protected” species, within the meaning of Annex 3. This is exactly what one of the motions asked for, in part.

Councilor Beat Rieder (C/VS) immediately responded to this good news for the opponents of the wolf: “I hope that this decision of the European Commission – finally an intelligent decision of the European Commission – will now be implemented by you quickly and reasonably, he said to the head of DETEC, Albert Rösti. (…) You can do it quickly and efficiently. So maybe we, on this council, will no longer have to spend hours talking about this wolf.”

The second objective of the motion concerned the creation of “zero wolves” zones, that is to say here to completely eliminate wolves in certain regions. In April, the National Council adopted a motion from the Center to this effect by 95 votes to 83 and 7 abstentions.

The Federal Council has already responded that this concept of “zero wolves” was not compatible with Swiss law. This does not provide “for any native species areas in which all individuals of the species in question can be killed”. And he added that such a policy would be complicated, “especially for species which, like the wolf, require vast territories and travel long distances”.

In addition to a significant workload for the cantons, these “zero wolf” zones would give a “false sense of security to the people concerned, because the damage caused by the predator would continue to occur in these zones too”.

A second motion, carried by Fabio Regazzi (C/TI), called for less bureaucracy and more efficiency in wolf politics. “The existing legal provisions for regulating wolves are too complicated, too rigid and above all too bureaucratic,” he denounced. Farmers, ranchers and affected communities face massive challenges, while the administration often spends more time doing paperwork than finding pragmatic solutions.

The Federal Council and its representative Albert Rösti were not formally in favor of the two motions. They believe that we should already take stock of the new shooting facilities granted since the winter of 2022-2023. “If this doesn’t bear enough fruit in a year or two,” he said, “I will be the first to propose new legislation. In the regulation, I think we will ask the Federal Council what is possible under the existing legislation, which will then have to be implemented.

In the end, however, the committee motion was accepted by 32 votes to 11. That of Fabio Regazzi by 31 votes to 12.