‘The wolves are running” is the haunting refrain in John Masefield’s classic seasonal tale The Box of Delights, and this winter the predator is back on the menace.
While Kay Harker and his friends have the magical powers of Old England to ward off the threat, on mainland Europe there is little anybody can do.
There are more than 21,000 wolves in Europe running in packs that kill about 40,000 sheep, goats and cattle every year while famers stand by helplessly because the wolf is a protected species under international and European Union law.
Losses are substantial and often tragic. As predator numbers and the killings soar, the political climate is turning colder for the wolf, which remains a potent symbol in folklore as well as a success story for environmentalists desiring to “rewild” Europe.
A turning point — a very personal one — was the killing of a pony, Dolly, owned by the family of Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.
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The 30-year-old horse was found slaughtered in the aristocratic family’s paddock in Beinhorn, near Hanover, in late September leaving Von der Leyen “terribly affected” and “upset”.
DNA analysis revealed the killer to be a wolf, known by the authorities as GW950m, which had already killed at least a dozen livestock, mainly sheep and cattle.
The wolf was designated a public danger three weeks ago and a permit issued for it to be shot but the predator remains at large in nearby forests.
Germany has a growing population of between 1,800 to 2,000 wolves. They hunt in at least 158 packs, with another 27 pairs yet to breed and more than 40 lone wolves without cubs roaming the countryside. In the past year, the wolves have killed 2,881 sheep or goats in 700 attacks on farms, as well as 251 cattle in another 200 incidents. Sixteen horses or ponies, including Dolly, were killed.
In France, based on 2020 figures, some 800 wolves killed 11,064 sheep or goats, vital for makers of traditional cheeses such of Roquefort in the Pyrénées, as well as 224 cattle and four horses.
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Italian farmers are under pressure too. According to 2021 figures, 3,307 wolves killed 8,400 sheep or goats, 1,400 cattle and 300 horses or donkeys. Desperate sheep farmers on the outskirts of Rome have taken to sleeping in cars by their flocks to try to protect them against packs of wolves edging closer to the Italian capital.
In Belgium, a densely populated country not usually associated with wilderness, there are now at least two packs comprising nine wolves that last year killed 209 sheep or goats, five cattle and three horses. Across the border in the Netherlands, 15 wolves kill more than 200 livestock every year.
The protected lives of European wolves might be about to change. Von der Leyen has written to MEPs, after a vote at the end of November to call time on the wolf’s automatic protection under EU law. “The commission recognises that the return of wolves to regions of the EU where they have been absent for a long time and their increase in new territories involve challenges and some conflicts, such as attacks on livestock and risks for the local population,” she wrote, not mentioning her own personal loss.
Under the EU’s habitats directive, wolves have “strict protection” both from hunters and farmers. In one ruling in 2020, the European courts ruled that the thousands of wolves estimated to live in EU territory were fully protected even if they strayed from reserves or forests into cities or towns.
The judgment followed a Romanian case when a wolf had strayed into a village and was captured. The animal remained unharmed but European judges in Luxembourg ruled that its capture and “relocation” breached EU law because it was “unsafe” for the wolf.
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Such is the level of protection that Dutch courts last month prevented rangers from using paintball guns to scare off a lone wolf that was bothering picnicking families and children in a national park. “The judge chose the wolf and not the humans,” said Harm Niesen, the head of Fauna Protection, a Dutch conservation group.
While the wolf is still on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list of threatened species, it is classed as of “least concern” rather than near threatened, vulnerable or endangered.
“Growing populations of large predators are threatening the traditional way of farming in several European countries, not only in mountainous regions where pastoralism is an important part of agriculture,” said Herbert Dorfmann, a conservative MEP from South Tyrol in northern Italy. “When populations change, their conservation status must follow.”
Dorfmann and other European conservatives representing farming interests have mobilised powerful fear rooted in folklore of wolves in Europe, using the image of Little Red Riding Hood to make their case.
In France patience is running out. This autumn the Lozère prefecture in the southeastern Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region threatened to approve “preventive shooting” of wolves, going much further than “defensive” actions farmers are allowed if a wolf is caught in the act of attacking a flock.
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Environmentalists have accused farmers of wanting to roll back protections during “an unprecedented crisis of nature loss” after a “remarkable comeback to Europe’s landscapes” for wolves.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has accused campaigners of “promoting the fairytale that shooting wolves will solve all problems” and called for farmers to be better compensated to maintain valuable ecosystems.
“Wolves are being used as scapegoats for the wider socioeconomic problems the extensive livestock sector is experiencing,” said Sabien Leemans, biodiversity policy officer at the WWF. “Killing wolves is not an effective solution to reduce livestock predation.”
