Europe's Wolf Wars
SNOW IN EARLY December has become a rare phenomenon in Germany in recent years, but this past winter a sudden snowstorm hit the south of the country hard — resulting in grounded planes, canceled trains, and an exceptionally beautiful backdrop for my tour of the 2,962-square-kilometer Altmühltal Valley Nature Park in the southeastern state of Bavaria. Just south of Nuremberg, the Altmühl River runs slowly southeast for more than 200 kilometers before joining the Danube near the city of Regensburg. The region around the river, called Altmühltal (Altmühl Valley), is one of rolling hills and small villages with traditional sheep farms. “My whole life has been about sheep,” René Gomringer tells me as we descend into a snow-covered valley in his white Duster compact-SUV. After several switchback turns, we pass by a small cluster of snow-covered A-frame houses tucked under a blanket of mist. As we drive, Gomringer explains how sheep farmers traditionally lead their flocks up and down the sides of the valley. There’s not much money in wool anymore, he says. Instead, local sheep farmers receive payment for land management (landpflege), which involves moving their flocks regularly so that they thin out the local meadows and forests without overgrazing them. “In the meadows the sheep are getting fat and happy,” he says. “But then we bring them up into the forest to [mix up their foraging diet].” Gomringer has been farming sheep here since 1980. Originally from Switzerland, he moved to Germany as a young man and studied agriculture in the nearby city of Landshut. After college he became a state consultant for sheep, goats, and other livestock, and then started his own sheep pasture. Currently he’s got a small flock of 20 sheep and one small horse on his five-hectare farm in the village of Beilngries in Altmühltal. Gomringer spends about four hours a day tending to his animals. The rest of his time is given to teaching farmers how to protect their flocks from an old nemesis who has returned to threaten his herd and other livestock farms in the area — the wolf. When Gomringer started sheep farming in the 1980s, wolves had been hunted out of existence in the country for more than a century. They lingered on only in folklore and fairy tales where they are often portrayed as villainous creatures. But, thanks to conservation efforts, over the past couple decades, Europe’s most infamous apex predators have made an impressive comeback, reclaiming ground in Germany and across the continent. Now they find themselves caught in the same age-old conflict with a new generation of farmers, ranchers, and hunters who grew up thinking the wolf was gone for good. And, as with their North American relatives, the Eurasian wolf has become an object of heated controversy, one that pits conservationists against hunters and farmers. Reporter Paul Krantz explores the mounting social and political tension surrounding wolf management in Europe and how it could be driving policy changes that would seriously jeopardize the species’ continued survival on the continent.
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