Tyrol compensation rules blur wolf kills and other losses

Compensation payments for livestock losses linked to large predators in Tyrol are facing scrutiny after the association Wolves in Austria criticised the practice. According to ORF, 70 animals in Nauders alone were compensated last year, although proof that a wolf had killed them was apparently not required.

The association said the budget line for “compensation for damage caused by predators” also covered animals that had gone missing, fallen, or could not be found.

The Tyrolean government confirmed that, under certain conditions, such animals could receive at least partial compensation. Its response to a parliamentary inquiry, obtained by ORF, said payments were based on the criteria in the compensation guidelines for large predators.

Those guidelines allow at least partial compensation for missing, fallen or unfound animals if a temporal or geographical connection can be established with a confirmed presence of large predators. The government said average natural losses were not included in the calculation because it assumed that the compensated animals had disappeared because of large predators rather than illness, accidents or other ordinary causes.

Gerald Friedl, chairman of Wolves in Austria, said the practice required urgent explanation. “A sheep demonstrably killed by a wolf is something completely different from an animal that has disappeared, fallen or died for an unknown reason,” he said. Mixing those categories in public debate, he added, created a distorted picture of actual wolf damage.

The association said the example of Switzerland showed that most lost animals were not killed by large predators, but were lost through falls, illness, rockfalls, storms or similar causes. Friedl said such losses were well documented in Switzerland, which has more wolves than Austria, but were no longer recorded in Austria.

Data published by Tyrol for May and June 2026 also raised questions for the association. Its analysis counted 123 sheep that had died, been injured, had to be put down or gone missing in connection with relevant incidents. The wolf was clearly established as the cause in only 20 cases, or about 16 percent.

For about 84 percent of the animals, there was no clear proof that a wolf had been responsible. At the same time, the association said, new authorisations to shoot wolves in Tyrol had continued to be justified by livestock losses.

“Shooting a wolf does not protect a herd,” Friedl said. As long as livestock remained unprotected on pastures, he argued, the next wolf passing through would encounter the same situation.

Wolves in Austria called for a complete and verifiable damage database showing how many animals had demonstrably been killed or injured by wolves and how many were only suspected cases. It also wants figures for missing and fallen animals, cases with unknown causes of death, and the number of animals compensated from funds for predator-related damage.