Karol Kalisky, Arolla Film, Slovakia
European conservation officials have adopted EU proposals to end protections for wolves in Europe
The first snow of winter has fallen in Sanmartin, a village in Romania’s eastern Carpathian mountains.
Shepherd József Rácz and his sons keep 500 ewes up on the high pasture here. It’s a hard life: when he’s not worrying about milking his sheep, which he does three times a day, he’s worrying about protecting them from predators.
Each year, József loses five or six of his herd to a wolf, or a bear. It’s why he keeps 17 dogs.
“A good dog is the best tool a shepherd has, to protect his flock at night, and in the daytime too,” the farmer says.
On Tuesday, 45 years of strict protection for grey wolves in Europe came to an end, after conservation officials adopted EU measures to downgrade the animal’s protected status.
The news means that grey wolves will be moved from Annex II (strictly protected) to Annex III (protected) of the Bern Convention.
This will remove many of the safeguards that have allowed the animals to flourish in Europe and means that from the beginning of March next year, each EU country will be able to set an annual quota of wolves to kill.
József keeps 17 dogs in a bid to ward predators away from his sheep
The Commission argued that the number of wolves in the EU has almost doubled, from 11,000 in 2012 to over 20,000 today, and that they were causing too much damage to livestock.
The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) has called the decision “extremely disappointing”.
“Wolf populations have barely recovered after going extinct in most parts of Europe, and weakening their protection could jeopardise this fragile recovery,” said the WWF in a statement.
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