In the debate about how to deal with wolves, the Left Party sees no reason to reduce the wolf population. "Especially in times of election campaigns, it is easy to make political capital out of excitement," said Antonia Mertsching, member of the state parliament, in Dresden on Monday. This is also the case with the "simplistic demand to shoot wolf populations to protect grazing animals". Shooting wolves would not solve the problem.
"As a look at France shows, regular hunting does not lead to fewer attacks on livestock," Mertsching continued. According to this, around 20 percent of the wolf population in France has been released for shooting since 2021. According to Mertsching, 154 wolves were shot there in 2022 alone. Nevertheless, the number of livestock losses is significantly higher than in Germany. According to Mertsching, a wolf kills eleven sheep per year in France - in Germany, it only kills three.
Effective herd protection would be much more helpful. This is 100 percent funded in Saxony. "However, these measures are not monitored." For example, there are no controls by the specialist authorities, although the number of wolf attacks is increasing.
CDU politicians have already announced several times that they want to reduce the wolf population in Saxony by a third each year in order to compensate for the annual growth rate of the packs.
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