The European Parliament voted on Thursday to lower the protected status of wolves. But that does not mean that wolves can now be shot more easily in the Netherlands. Legislation and other conditions still prevent that.

Important news
The protected status of the wolf will be downgraded from "strictly protected" to "protected". A majority of the European Parliament voted in favour of this on Thursday. 371 members of parliament voted in favour of downgrading the strictly protected status. 162 members voted against and 37 members abstained from voting.

The decision now only needs to be approved by the Council of the European Union, but that is a formality. Once that has happened, wolves can be killed more easily in the European Union (EU). However, the predator will remain protected. And in order to be allowed to shoot a wolf, certain conditions must still be met.

In the Netherlands, nothing will change in practice in the near future. First, national legislation must be amended. State Secretary Jean Rummenie (Agriculture) is working on this. The bill is ready, but it will take some time before the law is amended.

In order to be allowed to kill wolves, there must also be a so-called favourable conservation status in the Netherlands. This means that the wolf population in our country must remain strong enough if a wolf is removed from it. At the moment, this is not clear for the Netherlands. This is still being researched.

EU worked long to lower protected status
The downgrading of the wolf’s protected status was a long road. Since 2023, the EU has been working on making it easier to kill wolves, mainly because livestock is attacked by the predator. At the end of last year , one of the last major hurdles was taken with an amendment to the Bern Convention .

Thursday's vote in Europe is separate from the decision by the province of Gelderland to kill a wolf that bit a runner on the Hoge Veluwe . If a problem wolf is found, it may be killed under certain conditions.

Gelderland believes that there is such a problem wolf, although several animal organizations have objected to this. The case will be brought before the judge on Friday.

There are now about twenty thousand wolves living in Europe. In recent decades, the predator has made a big advance. There are more than a hundred wolves living in the Netherlands. Most have their territory on the Veluwe.