Amendment to Hunting Law – Hesse Wants to Legally Kill Wolves

The German Federal State of Hesse has included wolves in its hunting legislation. Yet, as of now, the animals are still protected by EU law. Instead of enlarging forest areas in favor wild animals, they are now to be killed. Not even the German Green Party voted against this amendment.

Wolves are under particular threat in Hesse. This German Federal State has very few woodland areas, and even those few are being cut down. As a result, wolves are coming closer to human dwellings, killing more and more sheep. This, in turn, has become a problem for livestock farmers. The German conservative party CDU already promised action on the “Wolf issue” and has now been able to implement it. 

The Hessian state parliament has thus “incorporated the wolf into hunting law”. This, however, is just a fancy wording meaning that the animals may legally be killed. All parties in the Hessian parliament agreed on such an amendment. In addition to the coalition in power of CDU and the social-democrat SPD, the liberal FDP and right-wing extremist AfD also voted in favor. Although the Green Party abstained, they did not take any major action against the amendment, merely quibbling with the details of the decision. 

Lots of people in Hesse celebrate this decision, as they see the wolf as a threat to chickens and other livestock. Instead of making the killing of wolves legal, they should have decided to give the animals back their natural habitat, i.e., to re-establish more woodland. If the woods are large enough and the wolves have enough space, they won’t hunt or roam where people live. But of course, it seems a lot easier just to kill some animals. 

Ingmar Jung, CDU member and Hessian Minister of the Environment, called this decision a great day. The CDU had promised a different policy on wolves during the state election campaign, he said. And he added that now no party in the state parliament was fundamentally opposed to it.

For now, simply shooting a wolf is not an option in Hesse, as wolves are still strictly protected by the European Union (EU). The restrictions on shooting wolves remain high, and the resolutions in Hesse do nothing to change that. 

However, the shooting of wolves is soon to be changed under EU law, too. The EU member states have already initiated a reduction in the protection of wolves. They are planning to lower the wolves’ protection status from “strictly protected” to merely “protected”.

The Hessian CDU is now invoking this. The conservative party is going to set up a regional “inventory management” (German: Bestandsmanagement) independent of European law. Jung is calling for Germany to “reform” the federal nature protection law – or, in other words, to put wolves on the hit list. 

Luckily, this won’t happen too quickly, and therefore it won’t be so easy to shoot wolves in Hesse anytime soon. However, one thing has already been decided in the federal state of Hesse: The Hessian Wolf Center is now under the authority of the state forestry agency Hessenforst and no longer part of the State Agency for Nature Conservation, Environment and Geology (German: Hessisches Landesamt für Naturschutz, Umwelt und Geologie, HLNUG). This is likely to change the interests and objectives of the Wolf Center. At least this decision has been criticized by the Green Party – which doesn’t help, because it has already been decided. 

Hans-Jürgen Müller, member of parliament for the German Green Party, said in an interview with the newspaper FAZ that grazing livestock is a valuable asset and must not be endangered by the return of wolves. He does note, however, that the state of Hesse should invest more money and energy in protecting herds, as well as providing more effective financial support to livestock owners whose animals have been killed.