The challenge of management
The increase in population of the Lupo in Europe has also affected the Italian territory. The rapid recovery of the Italian wolf population has meant an increase in the number of individuals, confirmed by the results of the national survey conducted by ISPRA in the years 2020-21, and the spread of the species in many areas from which it had become extinct, including areas with a high human presence. This is creating, in some cases, a lot of alarm and new conflicts within communities. The fear of this species is at the root of the alarm that is being generated, considering that in recent years several cases of accidents involving injuries to people by some wolves have been recorded in Italy. The challenge of managing these problems, also linked to the high population densities of a part of the country, is to combine the conservation of wolf populations with the need to prevent and minimize safety risks for humans.
Aggressive attitude towards humans
Over the past ten years, ISPRA has been increasingly called upon to provide support to local bodies (Municipalities, Regions, Autonomous Provinces, Protected Areas and Prefectures) in managing situations of social alarm linked to this phenomenon. There were 100 situations in which the Institute was consulted in the years 2017-2024, of which 61 in the two-year period 2022-2023 alone. In the period 2017-24, seven wolf individuals showed an aggressive attitude towards humans, carrying out 19 attacks, including the 11 attacks by a single female wolf recorded in Vasto in the summer of 2023. Added to these events is the recent case of Agnone, in the Province of Isernia, which occurred last June 10, in which a female wolf bit a girl and was immediately captured and transferred to an enclosure in the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park. There have also been numerous cases of wolves that have begun to assiduously frequent human-inhabited environments, in some cases preying on stray or owner-owned dogs and cats, sometimes even kept inside fenced areas. In nine cases of wolves that had shown problematic behavior, with strong habituation to humans and their environment, or actual confidence, it was necessary to activate more “energetic” actions such as the application of a collar to monitor their movements, relocation to a natural area far from the affected area, up to the definitive removal from nature, transferring the individual to a fenced area, as in the case of Agnone. All these interventions were carried out in compliance with Italian and European legislation, which currently requires an authorization from the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security granted on the basis of a technical opinion from ISPRA. To date, no wolf has ever been legally killed in Italy.
Experimental protocol
In order to provide technical and scientific support to public bodies called upon to manage alarm situations related to problematic behaviors assumed by wolf individuals, ISPRA, in collaboration with the European project Life Wild Wolf, has analyzed the cases known for Italy up to the end of 2024 and, taking into account scientific and technical literature available at international level, has prepared an Experimental Protocol for the identification and management of urban and confident wolves. The document was presented to the Regions in February of this year, on the occasion of a meeting convened by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, and organized in contact with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry. The protocol has the first objective of preventing interactions between wolves and humans, avoiding that individuals or packs of wolves settle in urbanized areas. It therefore clarifies the need to make these areas unattractive for wolves, and for wildlife in general, for example by appropriately managing waste or adopting suitable methods of keeping our pets.
The measures that can be adopted
The document describes possible cases of interaction between wolves and people and places them in an increasing scale of potential risk for humans, mainly due to the confidence that wolf individuals can develop. The text then indicates the measures that can be adopted, taking into account the specific contexts, the repetition of different behaviors, and any responses of individuals to the actions carried out. In addition to the aforementioned removal of any attractant, the actions include the careful monitoring of specific individuals or packs, deterrent interventions, for example through rubber bullets that do not harm the animals but can recreate a fear towards humans, up to the removal of individuals that by behavior or context pose a concrete danger to humans. The approach proposed by the document, while considering it necessary to evaluate each individual context to identify the best solution, provides for a gradual and proportional application of the measures, following the approach of the national and community regulatory framework.
Maximum annual removal threshold
Furthermore, EU legislation, including the amendments currently being approved at European level, requires European Member States to maintain the species' populations in a satisfactory state of conservation, ensuring that any removals do not conflict with this objective (as specified in art. 14 paragraph 1 of the Habitats Directive). In this context, in the meeting with the Regions and Autonomous Provinces, ISPRA proposed a maximum annual removal threshold consistent with this principle, adopting a precautionary approach. The methodology proposed by ISPRA for calculating this threshold is based on the estimates obtained through the 2020-21 national survey, relating to the size of the national population (3501 individuals), the distribution of the species, and also takes into account the percentage of hybrids detected in peninsular Italy in the same survey (approx. 12%). Applying this precautionary approach, the maximum annual removal threshold was identified at 3-5% of the overall population, which may be reassessed in the coming years. The distribution of the maximum sampling threshold among the different regions and autonomous provinces was instead calculated on the basis of the proportion of the area of presence of the wolf in the different territorial contexts, as emerged from the national survey. The following table summarises the regional thresholds resulting from the application of this methodology for 2025 (Source ISPRA).
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