Danish wolf culling permits issued during breeding season, putting pups at risk

Danish authorities have granted 12 private hunters permits to cull wolves in the Oksbøl area despite the animals currently raising pups, raising ethical concerns over orphaned cubs potentially starving to death, state broadcaster DR reports.

The Danish Council for Animal Ethics has warned that shooting a nursing female wolf could leave dependent pups to die, as they rely on their mother’s milk for the first weeks of life. “The issue is significant. There’s no doubt that pups dying of starvation will suffer. This is clearly an ethical problem,” said council chair Bengt Holst.

The permits, issued by the Agency for Green Transition and Water Environments, target wolves exhibiting “problematic behaviour” on private land. While the agency acknowledges a “limited risk” of killing a parent wolf, it maintains that the need to control problematic individuals outweighs the ethical concerns.

Hunters in the area have held meetings to discuss when to shoot, with Claus Lind Christensen, chair of Denmark’s Hunters’ Association, stating that members have been instructed not to target nursing females. “If a wolf passes by and you see it’s a lactating female, you obviously shouldn’t shoot it. We’ve made that very clear to our hunters,” he said.

The association has called for future culls to take place earlier in the year, before wolves breed, to avoid similar ethical dilemmas. “We don’t want to be accused of acting unethically. I would have preferred this issue to be resolved earlier,” Christensen added.