Wolf-livestock conflict is one of the primary barriers to wolf conservation across Europe — evidence-based conflict mitigation tools can dramatically reduce predation while protecting both wolves and livestock.
Wolf-livestock conflict creates welfare harms at multiple levels: sheep and cattle killed or injured by predation suffer acute trauma; wolves shot in retaliation die or survive injured; the fear of predation events creates chronic stress in pastoralists that undermines support for wolf recovery. Evidence-based coexistence tools address the predation welfare harm while protecting wolves. Night penning and LGDs are particularly effective — and historically used by shepherds before industrialisation changed grazing management. Reinstatement of these practices, supported by compensation for transition costs, is the most practical path to coexistence.