00:05They say you can feel when a wolf is watching you.
00:08You think it's around us somewhere now?
00:11Maybe.
00:12It is spooky.
00:14This state in northern Germany is actually packed with wolves.
00:17There's even one wolf around here that's particularly infamous.
00:20Serial number GW950M.
00:22He's killed more than 70 livestock.
00:25But he really got in trouble when he killed a pony of equine lover Ursula von der Leyen,
00:29the president of the European Commission.
00:32So he got a kill order.
00:35Shots were fired.
00:36Killing other wolves, none of them GW950M.
00:39After three years, he still lives somewhere in these forests,
00:42reportedly with his new partner and their two pups.
00:44A lot of people though want him and other wolves gone from Germany.
00:47Is it possible to keep the wolves out?
00:50By killing them, yes.
01:01I'll admit it, I love animals and I came out here just to see a wolf.
01:05But as I looked more into it, I got deeper into a story about people and politics.
01:10And learnt about the fascinating lives of wolves.
01:13So, here are two things I learnt and I'll show you how I got here.
01:16Hunting wolves is possibly the worst way to deal with the problem.
01:19And it is possible to live with these predators in Europe, even as kind of housemates.
01:28That's what secret Kenny Kenner does in the German state of Lower Saxony.
01:32I paid him a visit at a hotel he runs whose property overlaps with the territory of a wolf pack
01:37of seven.
01:37What is your life like, living so close to a wolf?
01:41I find it very exciting and very beautiful.
01:43I could never have imagined that there would be wolves again in Germany.
01:46I was totally surprised when that happened.
01:50Currently there are around 1600 grey wolves in Germany, mostly in the north, slowly migrating downwards.
01:56They are smart animals, almost always avoiding humans, even though they live in landscapes dominated by humans.
02:02Oh, there are some skat.
02:04It's wolf skat.
02:14And you can see a lot of hair.
02:15Oh, yes.
02:17And bones.
02:18Hair and bones are in there.
02:21And it smells like wolf skat.
02:25Ugh!
02:28Kenny is part of a group of volunteers that monitors wolf movement for the government.
02:33Apart from sniffing around for their excrement, he also has 35 camera traps set up in the forest.
02:40One of them caught some very dangerous wildlife approaching.
02:44This, he says, is part of keeping track of all the action in the forest and how it is changing
02:49as the presence of the wolf affects and benefits the ecosystem.
02:54White boar.
02:55Oh!
02:57A big group.
02:58So many.
02:59Yeah.
03:00It's a young one.
03:01Oh.
03:02A young red deer.
03:03Yeah.
03:04Lovely.
03:08When wolves kill other animals, many other animals feed on them.
03:12And I know from photo traps that at least 40 species feed on the wolf's kill.
03:17So it's a cycle.
03:18And wolves are simply a part of it.
03:21That was missing before.
03:23Now the wolves are coming back.
03:25They're taking their place again and serving the ecosystem.
03:33A healthy ecosystem is essential for our survival too.
03:37From clean air and to support pollinators that help grow food.
03:41The return of the grey wolf in such huge numbers around Western Europe is seen as a great environmental success.
03:49But now, things have changed.
03:59These are the areas where the wolf bit him, right on the neck.
04:10Yes, the wolf's teeth left a hole here.
04:15It caused an infection.
04:19Two months ago, one sheep died and 16 were injured in an attack on this farm.
04:23And this is happening more and more.
04:29How do you feel about this?
04:33Bad.
04:34Very bad at the moment.
04:36Because you can't make the animals safe anymore.
04:39I say that the animals are actually my animals.
04:42They trust me.
04:43But they can't do that anymore.
04:45That's because the more wolves, the less security for the future.
04:49Since we've already had attacks twice this year, I feel like they're increasing rapidly.
04:58We were also joined by the vice president of the state's Farmers Union.
05:02It's not just the money. It's the work. It's what you see and what you think about.
05:11If you see your dead animals, you let them grow up. You see how they were born and then you
05:19see how they were killed.
05:22Germany's and Europe's Farmers Unions were successful in making their displeasure known.
05:26The EU law changed this year to downgrade the wolf's protection status.
05:30It is still protected, but member states can manage their wolves with more flexibility, including the use of hunting via
05:38licenses.
05:43Would you personally shoot a wolf?
05:46I'm not a hunter. I'm not allowed to do this.
05:48But if you don't tell, I will do.
05:52And if all the wolves were to be killed, like it happened in Germany a hundred years ago, that would
05:58make you happy?
06:00No, no, I don't think it's necessary. I think he is also part of the nature and it could be,
06:08it should be manageable to let them living here.
06:15But I think it has to be on a scale which is acceptable also for us.
06:22A few days earlier, before my trip into wolf country, while researching the story in Berlin, I met Dr. Zibylla
06:27Klenzendorf, a scientist and conservation expert now at the WWF, who is totally against the new law.
06:33It was a political decision now, based not on the science.
06:36Population numbers were calculated by the Ministry of Environment that we should have a minimum of 279 packs in Germany
06:46for long-term survival of the population.
06:49We're at 209 right now, so we're actually away from that minimum threshold that they themselves calculated as a minimum.
06:56So how did that happen?
06:59Politics. You know, it's politicians deciding one thing over their own scientists in the government.
07:08After many research meetings, it felt like this is a very emotional story, where everybody holds a very strong opinion.
07:16So I dug deep into the science, and while population numbers are still somewhat debated, wolf behavior is where it
07:23gets really interesting.
07:26So here's a case that science makes for why hunting doesn't work.
07:29Wolves live in packs of 2 to sometimes over 10, and there are two main wolves.
07:33They're not called alpha anymore. The scientific term now is mum and dad.
07:37Mum and dad are the only wolves that breed, and the other adults are just kind of aunts and uncles
07:42that help out.
07:43If you shoot either mum or dad, then that changes the rules of the wolf pack.
07:48All the other adults can now start breeding, and they do.
07:51So for one, you might end up with more wolves in the area where you wanted them gone.
07:56The other thing is, look at this map that shows the movement of GPS tagged wolves in North America.
08:01That's how much they each stay in their own territories.
08:04So if you kill one wolf, a new stranger wolf might enter a territory with completely new behaviors,
08:10which could be a threat to livestock there.
08:13And nobody knows exactly why, but some wolves prefer easy chubby sheep to wild prey.
08:18So you might invite a new wolf in with a more dangerous taste than the original wolf.
08:24Slovakia actually tried to hunt wolves to manage them, and introduced hunting with quotas from 2014.
08:29For the next five years, up to 56 wolves were killed annually.
08:33But studies found this made no significant difference to livestock losses.
08:38But Germany and others did say yes to hunting anyway, in the EU vote.
08:43The wolf has become a larger and larger talking point, with some parties in Germany running ads like this.
08:50With tensions and livestock attacks rising, the European Parliament pushed the vote through as an urgent procedure, usually reserved for
08:57emergencies.
08:59The reduction in protections was fast-tracked.
09:03For me, this whole wolf debate is really an indicator of the larger agricultural subsidy debate that's happening and has
09:11to be restructured to really support rural areas and small farmers.
09:17And the wolf is an easy target to say we're doing something.
09:22I would hope that the rules and regulations and science has still a place that it's evaluated fairly what the
09:30status of an endangered species or a protected species is.
09:33And then that we together find solutions of how to coexist.
09:41I'm going to meet a shepherd who believes that coexistence is possible.
09:45I'm going to meet a shepherd who believes that coexistence is possible.
09:45Um, they're all staring at me.
09:49Hello.
09:53This is Stefan Erb, who has learned to live with wolves.
09:57Hello.
09:58Ah, okay. Add the tea.
10:03Seven years ago, we started having attacks on the sheep.
10:08The wolf was in the herd at night, and it happened repeatedly over a period of two years.
10:17And finally, there were so many attacks with so many dead sheep that I really didn't want to keep going.
10:27He has since adopted shepherd dogs, taking the government up on subsidies and shepherd support schemes that exist in Germany
10:35and other EU countries.
10:36He says it takes more work than before, though, including training potentially aggressive dogs and staying on top of sheep
10:43protection 24-7.
10:48They say if there's a problem, you can just use dogs and everything will be fine.
10:52Well, it's not that easy, but it is possible.
10:55With us, since we've been using dogs, we don't have any dead sheep anymore, even though the wolves are constantly
11:00around here.
11:05Erb also has electric fences that he puts up every night, which are also paid for by the government.
11:10They go a long way, he says, but all these measures are still not completely fool, I mean wolf-proof.
11:22We've been fighting for a long time for the funding we need, and it's supposed to come now.
11:26We're very happy about that.
11:29You won't be able to avoid killing some wolves, because some will learn, for example, to jump over these fences.
11:36But a lot of wolves, maybe even most, are likely to accept a well-built electric fence.
11:42Echt?
11:43Yeah.
11:44Back at the Kennel's Hotel, guests are gathering to watch the footage of the forest captured over the day.
11:49While it's charming to see that a wolf walked the same path you did just a few hours before,
11:54I'm also thinking of the fate of the sheep still out there tonight, and how they can be protected.
12:03It's not just a question of us liking wildlife, it's a question of us needing wildlife for the survival of
12:09these forests,
12:10and our survival that depends on these forests.
12:13And to do this, what we really need is to involve the people whose lives are at stake, to be
12:17a part of the conversation.
12:19Moo Treaty
12:27Are they farking for sleep?
12:29Propos centre
12:33we are almost losing depth
