As of: February 17, 2024, 10:32 a.m
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A wolf stands in its enclosure in a wildlife park.
© Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa/archive image
Wolves are strictly protected by law.
Nevertheless, like other animals, they still fall victim to poachers.
Dresden - Wolves repeatedly fall victim to poachers in the Saxon forests.
Only last Wednesday (February 14th) a killed male adult wolf was found in the Königshainer Berge area (Görlitz district), said Karin Bernhardt, spokeswoman for the State Office for the Environment.
Two cases are still being investigated.
It is not yet possible to say with certainty whether these were illegal killings.
Last year, three wolves were killed illegally.
According to Bernhardt, 196 dead wolves have been recovered in Saxony since 2000.
Of these, 17 cases were illegal killings.
There are currently around 38 packs, 4 pairs and 2 individual animals living in Saxony.
According to the state office, 1,024 dead wolves have been found in Germany since 1990.
94 were killed illegally, 762 died in traffic accidents, and the cause of death is unknown in 14 cases.
The wolf is a strictly protected species in Germany.
Anyone who kills wolves risks up to five years in prison.
According to statistics from the State Criminal Police Office, cases of poaching have remained roughly the same in recent years.
In 2022, a decrease from 47 to 40 cases was recorded compared to the previous year.
However, in 2018 there were only 27 cases.
In the past two years, criminal investigators have managed to solve more than one in three cases.
The number of suspects identified fell from 20 to 14 from 2021 to 2022.
With five cases each, the districts of Bautzen, Central Saxony and the Vogtland district were at the top in 2022.
More current figures are not yet available.
Poaching is an ongoing issue, says the President of the State Hunting Association, Frank Seyring.
The perpetrators became more and more professional.
They are often equipped with night vision devices and silencers and are usually motorized.
They hunted almost all exploitable wild animals.
Seyring also sees poachers as a danger to hunters.
It is completely unclear how caught poachers react.
The double murder of two police officers by poachers in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate at the end of January 2022 has also stuck in the minds of Saxon hunters.
There is currently a warning about poachers on the website of the Dresden Hunting Association and expressly refers to the “Kusel case”.
But not only the killing of animals is poaching;
even if someone finds a deer antler and takes it with them.
Likewise, taking dead or injured wild animals after a traffic accident could result in a report, according to the state-owned Sachsenforst.
A case from the Adorf forestry district is considered typical, where two female deer were found dead with gunshot wounds in June 2022.
The animals probably lived for a while before they died.
A more recent case occurred near Bautzen, where the district office received a complaint against a perpetrator who is said to have slaughtered more than 100 mute swans he had killed since 2016 and illegally sold their smoked breast meat to gourmets in an online forum.
dpa