Wolves (image: © Klein & Hubert/WWF)

Sion, Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A wolf was shot in the Val d’Illiez, canton Valais early Thursday 20 August, just a day after WWF Switzerland and Pro Natura announced they are making a legal appeal against canton Valais’s July decision to allow two wolves to be shot and a decision by Lucerne to shoot one. “We will go ahead with our appeal in the hope that, thanks to a future decision by the tribunal the wolves will be better protected in the future,” says Kurt Eichenberger, head of biodiversity for WWF Switzerland.

WWF Switzerland says the canton’s procedures for making the decision to kill is flawed.

In the case of one of the wolves protection measures for flocks of sheep were adequate until fireworks during the 1 August national day celebration frightened them and they broke loose from their enclosure. The wolf attacked 16 of them, writing his death penalty in the process.

WWF says it will ask for a costing of the shooting operation, given the CHF330,000 spent to kill a wolf in the Chablais region in 2006. If that money “had been spent protecting the troops, the wolf killed today would not have come to this end,” Eichenberger says.

Hunters who are authorized to kill the other wolf have until 6 October to find it, the canton says.

The wolves versus farmers debate has been raging in Switzerland since 2007 when the return of the animals after a 125-year absence was confirmed. The federal government announced 11 August that genetic tests show the number of wolves has increased since 2007, and there are are now at least 12 and possibly 5-6 more wolves in Switzerland, two of them female. The federal government’s wolf plan 2008 is designed to encourage the growth of the wolf population, a species that is protected internationally, but WWF and Pro Natura argue the plan does not go far enough.

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