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Illegal wolf killing in the Thuringian Wartburg district: Nabu sounds the alarm!
The Wartburg district is rocked by a scandal surrounding the illegal shooting of a wolf, which leads to legal action.
Illegal wolf killing in the Thuringian Wartburg district: Nabu sounds the alarm!
In the Wartburg district, the recent illegal shooting of a wolf is causing great consternation and excitement among conservationists. The Nature Conservation Association (Nabu) Thuringia has now announced legal action and filed a criminal complaint against unknown persons after a wolf was found dead on a road near Hämbach in 2023. It was initially assumed that the animal had fallen victim to a traffic accident. However, investigations by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) confirmed that the wolf was shot. The wolf came from a pack in the Bavarian Rhön, while the exact circumstances of his death remain unclear, as MDR reports.
The incident is particularly worrying because it is the first documented illegal shooting of wolves in Thuringia. Silvester Tamás, wolf expert at Nabu Thuringia, says that Thuringia should be spared from such incidents. Because of him, conservationists are calling for the establishment of a central office to combat environmental crimes. There have already been two cases in which lynx were illegally killed in recent years, further increasing the security situation for protected animals. It is also worrying that the clearance rate for such offenses is zero, as was found by Diethüringer.
Legal situation and hunting of wolves
The legal situation surrounding wolves in Germany is complex. Wolves are under strong protection and may only be killed in exceptional cases. However, the EU passed a change in the law in June 2023 that allows member countries to lower the protection status of wolves. When sheep and goats are killed by wolves, it is easier to issue shooting permits if wolf-proof fences have been overcome several times. There are currently at least 1,600 wolves in Germany, divided into 209 packs, 46 pairs and 19 individuals, which, according to a survey n-tv, represents an increase of 260 wolves compared to the previous year.
However, despite the number of wolves identified in recent years, political efforts to change the legal barriers to their killing have yet to take hold. However, agricultural associations and animal owners are increasingly calling for more scope for action, as wolves killed or injured over 5,000 farm animals, especially sheep and goats, in 2023. Many animal owners have also not invested sufficiently in protective measures, which leads to the high black numbers.
In this tense situation, Peta has offered a reward of 1,000 euros for information about the perpetrator of the illegal wolf shooting, a further step to draw public attention to the seriousness of the situation. A holistic approach to combating environmental crimes seems urgently needed to prevent similar incidents in the future.