Forty NGOs challenge von der Leyen’s wolf policy: “Anti-scientific decisions on hunting; a moratorium is needed”

Brussels – Regarding the decision to downgrade the wolf to a non-endangered species, the European Commission, led by Ursula von der Leyen, has decided to “dismantle” environmental protection laws and regulations for unclear personal reasons, marking “a deeply worrying chapter in the development of EU environmental governance.” New criticism and fresh attacks are coming from animal‑rights and environmental groups against the EU executive, and the decision to loosen the rules on wolf hunting, taken after the killing of a pony owned by von der Leyen. Over 40 organizations from ten EU and non-EU countries (Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Spain, Sweden, Hungary, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland) are calling for “a total moratorium on wolf culling in the EU” and criticize the actions not only of the European Commission, which proposed reviewing the wolf’s conservation status, but also of the other EU institutions that supported it.

 The NGOs (in Italy, these include ENPA, LAV, LAC, Salviamo l’orso, Animalisti italiani, OIPA, and GreenImpact) have no doubts: this is an “anti-scientific maneuver to downgrade wolf protection promoted by Ursula von der Leyen, through a 2023 report produced by a Brussels-based consultancy firm – the N2K Group EEIG – commissioned and funded by the European Commission.” This therefore already points to a need for “full transparency regarding the influence of undeclared private interests on the EU’s decision-making process.”

​The figures put forward by animal rights activists and environmentalists appear to contradict von der Leyen’s decisions: “Losses due to wolf predation are estimated at just 0.06–0.07 percent of the total sheep and goat population in the EU: the rest is merely political propaganda.” Not to mention, the umbrella organization insists, that “neither the Commission nor the Member States have ever collected the most basic data: the actual extent of wolf mortality in Europe.” In essence, how many wolves die each year in the EU? “No one knows,” yet it has been decided to proceed with the hunt anyway. Here too, according to the associations, “the Commission’s new approach sends a worrying signal,” insofar as the current level of wolf mortality – due to poaching, poisoning, road accidents, and even hunting practices that violate European legislation – “is implicitly considered insufficient, despite the fact that it is not monitored in any way.”