Thousands of strictly protected wild animals have been poisoned, killed, or shot in Germany and Austria in recent years. For many strictly protected or rare animal species, illegal hunting is one of the most common causes of death and represents a massive problem for species conservation. Moreover, very few perpetrators are ever identified and even when they are, convictions are very rare.

To stop this trend, an unusual coalition of partners from nature conservation associations, authorities, veterinary medicine, the police, and academia has now launched the transnationally funded "wildLIFEcrime" project, which is being supported by the EU's LIFE program. The aim of the project, which will run until 2028, is to reduce the illegal killing of wild animals in Germany and Austria through significantly improved cooperation and to increase the efficiency in prosecution.

Project Partners from Germany and Austria - from WWF to the Police

The project team is made up of WWF Germany, WWF Austria, BirdLife Austria, the University of Bremen, Lower Bavaria Police Headquarters, Upper Palatinate Police Headquarters, the Austrian Federal Criminal Police Office, the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, ÖKOBÜRO – Alliance of the Environmental Movement, Luchs Bayern e.V., the Committee Against Bird Slaughter, and the NRW Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Transport.

In addition to implementing preventative measures, such as active conflict management in hot-spot areas, the project aims to ensure that cases are discovered, dealt with effectively, resolved, and that perpetrators are consistently held accountable. To achieve this, it is important to raise awareness among the population and simultaneously ensure that the law enforcement authorities receive the necessary support to access specialist knowledge and expand their capacities.

The project partners are therefore working to improve forensic investigations and offer advanced training for police and public prosecutors. They also want to establish structures and networks to improve the exchange of information. At the same time, they plan to develop proposals to optimize the legal framework in close exchange with decision-makers.

Wildlife Crime – A Threat to Birds of Prey, Lynx, Wolves, and Others

Wildlife crime is widespread in Central Europe and poses a significant threat to rare species. More than 1,600 cases of illegal raptor hunting with thousands of victims have been recorded across Germany since 2005. There are currently just under 130 lynxes living in Germany, 13 of which disappeared in the Bavarian-Bohemian region between 2018 and 2019 alone. On top of this, at least 79 wolves have fallen victim to illegal killing in the last 24 years. In Austria, more than 200 wild birds and 16 strictly protected mammals fell victim to illegal hunting between 2016 and 2022. The number of unreported cases is likely to be much higher, as many cases remain undetected or are not reported.

The University of Bremen's Role

The Research Center for Animal and Animal Welfare Law at the University of Bremen is involved in the project. This is where Professor Dr. Sönke Florian Gerhold, head of the research center, and Johannes Aschermann, research assistant, are working on a previously neglected area of law. While there is already extensive research on the rights of farm animals, wild animals have hardly been taken into account in legal research to date. On the one hand, the two researchers are looking at the legal framework for wild animal crime. "The legal situation here is sometimes unclear for laypeople as protection is granted to different animal species depending on the country or the federal state," explains Sönke Gerhold. EU law and regional law also contradict each other in some cases. In discussions with law enforcement authorities and courts, the academics want to find out where the legal situation causes difficulties and what challenges this creates for law enforcement.

On the other hand, they are also empirically examining how the investigation and prosecution of criminal offenses works in reality. Why are cases of wildlife crime rarely reported, why are many cases not detected, and why are the perpetrators rarely punished? To find out, the researchers are conducting population surveys, analyzing criminal case files, and holding interviews with experts.

Further Information:

https://wildlifecrime.info/projekt/ (in German only)

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Sönke Florian Gerhold
Head of the Research Center for Animal Law and Animal Welfare Law
Faculty of Law
University of Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-66165
Email: soenke.gerholdprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de