A European coalition of experts and NGOs, which Rewilding Apennines is part of, is calling for the European Commission to intervene and is preparing a complaint to the Bern Convention.
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On 2 June the Tyrolean authorities authorise the culling of a wolf sighted near the houses of Schlitters, in Austria. That day Mirco, the wolf that would be killed, is still in Italy, in the province of Bolzano. He would not reach Austria until five days later: he crosses the Schlitters area at night, for just a few minutes, then climbs above 1,900 metres, well away from any inhabited areas.
On 22 June the Tyrolean authorities announce the culling of a young wolf in the district of Schwaz. That wolf is Mirco. But was he the animal the authorisation actually referred to? The data from his radio collar indicate that in all probability he was not, with clear implications for the correct application of European law.
Mirco was a young wolf on dispersal, monitored with a GPS radio collar as part of a research project run by the Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park and the University of Sassari, dedicated to studying the dispersal of young wolves across the Alps: a piece in understanding ecological connectivity and genetic exchange between European populations. His movements had been communicated to the Austrian authorities in good time, as normal scientific cooperation between institutions requires. He is the second radio-collared Italian wolf killed in Austria in 2026: in February the same fate had befallen Andrea, monitored by the University of Udine and culled in Carinthia.
Together with a coalition of more than twenty organisations and experts from Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands, led by Io non ho paura del Lupo and ANCA – Austrian Nature Conservation Alliance, Rewilding Apennines has also signed a letter to the European Commissioner for the Environment, Jessika Roswall, sent as well to the Secretariat of the Bern Convention. The letter asks the Commission to verify whether the Austrian authorisation met the requirements of strict necessity, proportionality, absence of satisfactory alternatives and identification of the target animal; whether the Tyrolean regulatory framework is compatible with Article 16 of the Habitats Directive, which does not permit the culling of a wolf when it cannot be identified with certainty; whether a protected animal, part of a recognised monitoring project, can be killed despite institutional communication about its status; and whether data shared for scientific purposes may have been used, directly or indirectly, to facilitate the killing.
The letter will be followed by a formal complaint to the Commission and a request to open a case file with the Bern Convention. Since 2022 Austria has authorised the culling of around 70 wolves, 26 of them in the first months of this year alone, despite having classified the conservation status of its own population as “unfavourable-inadequate” (U1+) in its most recent report submitted under Article 17 of the Habitats Directive. This makes the assessment of the legitimacy of the authorised culls all the more delicate.
“The management of large carnivores can require complex decisions, but such decisions must always be grounded in scientific evidence, in rigorous technical assessment, and in full respect for European law,” says Daniele Ecotti, President of Io non ho paura del lupo. “When two wolves that are the subject of international scientific monitoring are killed within a few months, it is only right to ask the European institutions to verify whether Community law has been correctly applied.”
Read the press release and the letter here
