The European Parliament has voted in favor of the European Commission’s proposal to weaken wolf protection, citing increased conflicts with people and livestock in some regions. The draft law, which requires approval by the EU Council, will make it easier to hunt wolves.
While hunting and landowners’ associations applauded the decision, environmental groups expressed dismay.
“Wolves are vital to healthy ecosystems, but today’s vote treats them as a political problem, not an ecological asset,” Ilaria Di Silvestre, director of policy and advocacy for Europe at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), said in a statement.
The first step in the wolf’s drop in legal protection came last December, when the Standing Committee of the Bern Convention, an international treaty for the conservation of European wildlife, voted to downgrade the wolf from “strictly protected” to “protected.” The proposal was initiated by the European Commission, the EU’s executive body. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reportedly began advocating for the downgrade after the death of her pony, Dolly, in 2022, due to a wolf attack.
Subsequently, in March 2025, the Commission proposed the same protection downgrade in the EU Habitats Directive, an important EU legislation. The European Parliament, the EU’s legislative body, has now accepted amending the legislation to change the wolf’s status from “strictly protected” to “protected.”
Laurens Hoedemaker, president of the European Federation for Hunting and Conservation (FACE), said in a statement: “FACE welcomes this vote, which will reduce some heavy bureaucratic and legal conflicts associated with ‘strict protection’. Moreover, it shows that EU legislation can adapt where needed.”
However, a coalition of environmental NGOs including WWF EU, BirdLife Europe, ClientEarth, and the European Environmental Bureau said in a statement that downgrading wolf protection “is a political move disguised as policy — it ignores science, fuels division, and jeopardises one of Europe’s greatest conservation successes.”
Gray wolves (Canis lupus) were eradicated from much of Europe by the 19th century, largely from hunting. But conservation efforts since the 1960s turned their fate around. A recent study called Europe’s wolf recovery a “notable conservation success,” estimating there were at least 19,000 wolves in the EU by 2022.
Previous attempts to downgrade wolf protection fell short. In 2022, the Bern Convention’s Standing Committee rejected such a proposal from Switzerland following a report compiled by the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe (LCIE), a working group of the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority.
The LCIE said in a statement in November 2024 that the European Commission’s latest proposal “appears to be premature and faulty,” and “the LCIE does not recommend its adoption.”
The latest vote by the European Parliament sets “a dangerous precedent for EU policymaking,” the NGO coalition said.
“At a time when we must boost Europe’s nature — our best ally against the climate, biodiversity, and pollution crises — some decision makers are wasting time and energy to wage wars against our fragile species and ecosystems.”
Banner image of a Eurasian wolf courtesy of Staffan Widstrand/Swedensbigfive.org.
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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