Politics Glarus game warden shoots wolf that is not shy enough
The Glarus Wildlife Service shot a wolf in Elm late on Tuesday evening. The wolf was shot because the animal had approached a child earlier and there had been repeated sightings of wolves near a settlement in Elm during the day.
05.02.2025, 10:11
SDA
The game warden shot the male wolf on the edge of the village of Elm near a deer that had been killed, as the canton of Glarus announced on Wednesday. The large carnivore had killed the deer in a meadow the night before.
In the second half of January, two wolves encountered a child near Elm during the day, with one of the animals approaching the boy. According to the canton, wolves had previously been spotted several times during daylight hours in the Elm settlement area and other heavily frequented areas since December 2024.
The canton classified the wolves' behavior as "problematic" and ordered the shooting of the two Elm wolves the very next day.
"No danger to humans"
The Wolf Switzerland group criticized the shooting decision at the time. "However, the situations that have become public do not indicate aggressive behavior, but wolves that have not had any bad experiences with humans so far," the wolf conservationists wrote in a statement. Therefore, deterrence would actually be the appropriate measure, because unlike dead wolves, deterred wolves could still learn something.
"An immediate threat to human safety cannot be deduced from the known descriptions", emphasized the wolf protection organization. The risk posed to humans by wild wolves is so low that it cannot even be statistically recorded - worldwide.
