Wolves are making a comeback across Europe. As their populations grow, 65,000 livestock are killed each year by wolves. Now, moves are underway to change the protection status of the wolf in the European Union.
In this episode of The Conversation Weekly, we speak to a social scientist researching the best ways for humans and wolves to coexist.
Wolves used to be commonplace across Europe until they were eradicated from large areas of the continent in the 19th century. But wolf populations began to recover in the 1970s as they moved into tracts of unused farmland and stricter conservation regulations were introduced.
A new analysis from the European Commission put the number of wolves in the EU at 20,300 in 2023, up 81% from the estimated 11,193 living in the bloc in 2012.
Hanna Pettersson is a social scientist at the University of York in the UK whose research........