EU Chief warns return of wolves to Europe a 'real danger' for humans

European Union (EU) Chief Ursula von der Leyen has warned that the return of wolves to parts of Europe has become a real danger for livestock and potentially also for humans. She has promised a review of the predator’s protected status. Wolves had once been hunted almost to extinction in Europe, but in the 1950 countries began granting them protected status. Now populations are growing in several regions.

 

Ms von der Leyen urged local communities, scientists, and officials to submit data on wolf numbers and their impact to a



European Commission email address by the 22nd of September. Using this information, the commission will then decide how to modify wolf protection laws to introduce, where necessary, further flexibility.

 

Conservationists, however, have hailed the return of healthier wolf populations to Europe’s mountains and forests, seeing the large predator as part of the natural food chain. Under the EU Habitat Directive, first adopted in 1992, the wolf enjoys protected status.