Several EU member states have raised concerns that farmers will ‘give up’ on livestock farming due to attacks on their animals by large carnivores, particularly bears and wolves.
In a meeting of the Council of the EU this week, agriculture ministers from most member states spoke on the issues farmers are facing in their countries due to increasing numbers of these predators.
Some member states are seeking changes to the EU’s Habitats Directive to allow them to better deal with the issue, which they claim will force farmers out of the sector due to the costs of protecting their livestock from these carnivores.
More importantly, the issue of human safety was also raised.
This is not currently an issue in Ireland, so Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue, while present at the council meeting, did not comment on this particular agenda item.
His government colleague, Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications Eamon Ryan, has previously floated the idea of reintroducing wolves to Ireland (although Minister Ryan made these comments before the Green Party – which he leads – entered government).
Wolves have been extinct in the wild in Ireland for around 240 years.
The issue of large carnivores was raised at the council this week by the delegation from Romania, a country with over two-thirds of the EUs bear population.
The Romanian delegation said: “Since the Habitats Directive was adopted, the situation of large carnivores has improved, which proves that the measure we adopted were effective in order to protect biodiversity and go back to favorable conservation status for habitats and species.
“However, in certain member states, these measures have caused a significant increase of large carnivore populations, which risks affecting biodiversity, farming, and forestry, and endangers human lives and accelerates the abandonment of rural areas,” the Romania representative added.
She called for a “paradigm shift” and “effective and innovative” solutions in order for humans to co-exist with large carnivores, saying that legislative measures were needed to “guarantee citizens’ safety and well-being, the farmers’ capacity to protect their traditional activities…and also to ensure the long term conservation status of large carnivores”.
The views of the Romanian delegation were echoed by those from several member states, including Slovakia, whose representative said: “Our farmers, in addition to big input prices, have to spend additional resources to secure their herds against large carnivores.
“The constant damage to animals causes farmers to abandon animal husbandry.”
The Slovakian speaker referred to an incident in his home country that occurred only last week, in which a pack of wolves attacked a flock of some 230 sheep, of which over two-thirds were killed or injured.
The speaker from Italy, meanwhile, said: “Problems caused by this massive presence of large carnivores have to be addressed decisively so that people don’t give up on farming in these less advantaged areas of the [EU] and rural areas.
“What we need to do is update the current legislative framework. We have a very restrictive interpretation at the moment…in the Habitats Directive that’s not in line with data we have on the wolf population in Europe at the moment,” he added.
“This is a relevant problem for the future of farming in Europe.”
The Council of the EU meeting was attended by European Commissioner for Environment Virginijus Sinkevicius, who commented on these concerns.
He said: “The European Commission proposes an balanced co-existence between humans and large carnivores.”
Commissioner Sinkevicius encouraged member states to use all available EU and national funding to improve co-existence with large carnivores.
However, he said not all member states have used “the opportunities provided by the commission” to support farmers to prevent damage by large carnivores.
He told the council that derogations to the Habitats Directive are possible – where justified and proportionate – that allow for the killing of wolves and bears in some circumstances.
Commissioner Sinkevicius also said that the commission is committed to carrying out an analysis of the “wolf situation in Europe, looking at all available scientific and technical data and other relevant information”.
“This analysis is currently ongoing and we plan to finalise it by the end of the year,” he said.