Is a wolf cull the answer as Austrian farmers struggle in the Alps?

The EU is set to weaken the conservation status of wolves by the end of the year, which could result in widespread culling.

The legislation, however, needs to pass several EU bodies before it can come into effect.

This is a complete turnaround in the bloc's conservation policy. Thirty years ago, the EU re-established wolf packs in areas like the Alps, where they had been extinct for decades. Now, their population has multiplied to 20,000.

However, if wolves further expand in Austria's Alps, the remaining mountain farmers - that continue to defy low profits and hard work - are likely to quit due to wolf attacks on livestock.

Last year, the carnivores killed roughly half a per cent of the EU's sheep population.

This means Alpine pastures created over thousands of years by grazing sheep and cattle could cease to exist - which would have far-reaching consequences.

"When mountain farmers stop bringing their sheep to pastures, then this cultivated Alpine landscape becomes overgrown with bushes and trees," wildlife biologist Thomas Huber warns.

"Then many pasture species lose their habitat... species that are much more endangered than the wolf."

"I wouldn't have a problem if the wolf killed just one sheep but it kills a lot of them, just for the fun of it," Michael Stocker told CGTN.

The livestock farmer from Greifenburg in southern Austria lost a third of his sheep herd to wolves. "I ask myself whether I should continue to be a farmer at all when I see that a third of my flock of sheep are lying dead around me and have perished miserably," he added.

Now, after decades of wolf re-wilding, Europe seems to be changing course and is planning to lower the protection status, which will make it easier for farmers to cull the animal.

Already now, some regions in Austria and Slovenia allow farmers to shoot wolves that have mauled a certain number of sheep.

Lowering the carnivore's status from "strictly protected" to "protected" would mean more culling - and more protest coming from conservationists like Michael Mayer.

"The wolf has a very, very important role in the whole ecosystem of the forest, of the mountains," he said.

By hunting wild animals like deer, wolves can help control Austria's ever-growing game population, says Mayer, who works for the Association against Animal Factories. "These deer eat the trunks of the trees so we have a lot of damage in our forests and the wolf just regulates this," Mayer added.

For now, the wolf is set to stay. Even a lowered conservation status will not stop Austria's current wolf population from increasing, Huber adds.

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