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Wolf hunting will be allowed in Germany under legislation passed by the lower house of parliament in response to a rapidly growing population and a sharp rise in attacks on livestock.
The return and growth of the wolf population in the last three decades has emerged as a wedge issue in Germany, the land of the Brothers Grimm who popularised the spectre of the Big Bad Wolf.
The threat posed by roving packs often pits the left against the right and hard right, as well as the densely populated west against the more rural and former communist east where the wolves are concentrated.
The draft law, which animal protection groups had lobbied against, cleared the Bundestag on Thursday with votes from the centre-right led governing coalition and the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, which has long called for the killing wolves to protect farmers’ livelihoods.
Hermann Färber of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the senior party in the coalition, told the chamber a new balance was needed in the German ecosystem. “The suffering of grazing animals, which are often killed in the bloodlust of wolves, no longer has anything to do with animal welfare,” he said.
MPs from the Greens and the far-left Linke party voted against the bill, which must still pass the Bundesrat upper house. It is to vote later this month.
The legislation would permit Germany’s 16 states to allow wolf hunting from July to October in regions where the population of the animals is particularly dense. Wolves found to have previously killed or attacked farm animals would be cleared to be shot regardless of their conservation status or the season.
The German law implements an amendment to EU legislation allowing exceptions to species protection.
That change came after a debate triggered in 2022 when a wolf killed a pony named Dolly belonging to the EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, near Hanover.
She pushed for a review of the wolf’s protection status shortly afterwards, and it was eventually downgraded.
The German Hunting Association welcomed the latest legislation. The Working Group on Rural Agriculture, a farming sector lobbying organisation, called it a small contribution to the protection of sheep, goats and calves after a significant increase in wolf attacks.
About 4,300 farm animals were killed or injured by wolves in Germany in 2024, according to government statistics.
The Nature And Biodiversity Conservation Union (Nabu), which calls itself Germany’s oldest and largest environmental association, urged the regional states to block the legislation in the upper house.
“Species conservation in Germany must not be sacrificed for the sake of symbolic political action,” Nabu’s wolf expert, Marie Neuwald, said in a statement. Instead of culling, comprehensive herd protection was needed with subsidies for fences and herd protection dogs, she said.
The vote came three days before the south-western region of Baden-Württemberg goes to the polls, the first of five German states to hold elections this year.
The frontrunner, Manuel Hagel of the CDU, is an avid hunter and facing a stiff challenge from the Greens’ Cem Özdemir, a former federal agriculture minister, and the AfD candidate, Markus Frohnmaier.
The state is barely affected by the problem, but Hagel has taken a hard line on wolves in the campaign, saying “buckshot and lead will help” with the dangers they pose.
The wolf was pronounced extinct in Germany in the 19th century, but has made a striking comeback since 2000. An official study last year found 219 packs of wolves across the country, 36 couples and 14 individual animals. Baden-Württemberg had four lone wolves.
Shepherds are generally entitled to state compensation if wolves attack their flocks, but the bloody aftermath of an ambush is described as traumatising for people who live close to grazing animals.
In rural regions, the previous strict rules on hunting wolves had long been cited as conservation run amok, which the AfD seized on as a vote winner.
A 2022 study found a predictive link between wolf attacks and far-right voting behaviour in affected regions of Germany.
