Court negotiates shooting down
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Is she wolf “Gloria” a problem wolf?
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The hunter Sabine Baschke from Wesel on the Lower Rhine managed to take a rare photo: in nearby Hünxe, she took what may be the first sharp photo of a she-wolf in the region.
Photo: dpa / Sabine Baschke
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Interactive Düsseldorf She-wolf “Gloria” strains the nerves of grazing animal owners on the Lower Rhine. But the authorities have so far stuck to the she-wolf. Now the judiciary has the floor.
In official German it is about the wolf bull “GW965f”, in the vernacular it is about the she-wolf “Gloria”. Depending on who counts, “Gloria” is said to have already killed between 92 and 140 grazing animals on the Lower Rhine: “Shetland ponies, sheep, goats and fallow deer in the enclosure,” lists lawyer Stefan Steinkühler. Shepherd Kurt Opriel alone complains about 26 animals killed. His herd in the Schermbeck region was haunted eleven times by the she-wolf “Gloria”.
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Now Opriel has requested that the predator be shot down. The main hearing will take place this Thursday at the Düsseldorf Administrative Court. The shepherd wants to oblige the Wesel district to issue an exemption under the Federal Nature Conservation Act so that the she-wolf may be killed (Az .: 28 L 2558/20). However, he had already failed in the urgent procedure in January, so his chances should not be particularly good.
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“Gloria” has overcome power fences of 1.20 meters several times and is therefore actually behaving abnormally, says his lawyer. But the criteria, he criticizes, are constantly being pushed back. First it was said that a problem wolf was one who had overcome a four-foot-high electric fence. Then it said he had to do it twice, then he had to do it twice within four weeks.
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When it comes to “reasonable herd protection”, his client is particularly keen to create clarity. The authorities recommended that he lock his animals in a stable every night. But this has considerable economic consequences: “Then he can no longer cultivate the pastures that are further away because he cannot move the animals there and back for just one day,” says Steinkühler.
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“In addition, shedding the sheep is not appropriate to the species, especially in summer.” This means that the fur of the animals is much more infected with parasites. The grazing animal keepers felt helpless and were faced with new hurdles, according to the lawyer.
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Sheep eat in the stable of the shepherd Opriel.
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Photo: dpa / Caroline Seidel
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With protective fences only 90 centimeters high you also need herd guard dogs, it says. “But my client has 1.20 high fences,” says Steinkühler. There is now a suspicion that a wolf has even overcome a 1.70 meter high fence in the region.
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The wolf is one of the strictly protected animal species. In principle, his killing is forbidden. National and European law on species protection only allows killing in exceptional cases. The court must now clarify whether such an exceptional case exists.
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Grazing animal keepers and farmers on the Lower Rhine have joined forces in the Gahlen Citizens’ Forum and are demanding that they be shot down. They fear that the wolf could pass on its attacks on grazing animals to offspring.
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They accuse the State Environment Agency of glossing over the actual situation. Environmental protection organizations like BUND, on the other hand, criticize shooting demands as “pure populism”.
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