After being hunted to near extinction, wolves have returned to Europe. But when one killed Ursula von der Leyen’s family pony, it ignited a high-stakes battle. Are the animals’ days numbered?

Wolves have adapted swiftly and surely to human-dominated landscapes. But people are struggling to adjust to the wolves. The concentration of packs, von der Leyen declared when announcing the commission’s review of wolf protection laws, “has become a real danger for livestock and potentially also for humans”.

In December, the commission proposed to reduce the wolf’s status under the Bern Convention from “strictly protected” to “protected” in order to introduce “further flexibility” – potentially enabling wolves to be hunted and populations reduced across the EU.

Many populist politicians across Europe hope that talking up the threat of the wolf – alongside tough measures to tackle it – will win support ahead of next summer’s elections to the European parliament.

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    9•10 months ago

    This is close to a nothing burger.

    DNA evidence harvested from the pony’s carcass revealed that the wolf was an individual known as GW950m. This mature male wolf, which heads a pack (a wolf family usually numbering eight to 10) living around the von der Leyen residence, appears to have developed a taste for livestock. DNA tests on other carcasses implicates him in the deaths of about 70 sheep, horses, cattle and goats.

    That’s the norm for bears that learned eating humans, for example. These animals, once they learned there are free vitamins, will continue to penetrate into human neighborhoods, eat humans, or ponies in this case.