EUROPE'S increasing population of protected large carnivores is causing significant economic damage to traditional livestock farmers – who are now the continent's most endangered species.

Member States are reportedly spending millions of euros from their agricultural funds to compensate farmers and landowners for the damage done. Against this backdrop, experts, agricultural ministers and MEPs from across the continent met this week in the European Parliament to call upon the Commission to rethink its approach to predator protection.

The event entitled 'Manage vs. Damage' was co-hosted by MEPs Marijana Petir from Croatia, Elsi Katainen from Finland, Eric Andrieu from France, and Maria Gabriela Zoana from Romania, and EU farm unions Copa and Cogeca.

From the South to the North, the same accounts were reported from across the EU – with their numbers increasing rapidly, large carnivores are becoming bolder, coming closer to homes and herds and posing a major threat to the farming sector and rural communities. Wolves, brown bears and lynx were now thriving in Europe, said delegates, putting pressure on ecosystems and on traditional pastoralism.

Experts from Spain, Italy, France, Romania and Finland presented 'shocking' cases highlighting the extent to which local production had stopped, pasture lands had been abandoned and the ongoing rural exodus had been magnified.

Commenting, Msr Andrieu said that the issue of large carnivores had brought the EU to a crossroads, forcing its institutions to answer questions on the vision and ambition for rural areas in the decades to come. He suggested that, to maintain vibrant pastoralism, new proposals were needed together with a balanced and pragmatic approach.

Ms Petir, and Jari Lappe, the Finnish Minister of Agriculture, proposed that an initial answer lay in giving member states greater flexibility to adapt the management of protected species in accordance with their local habits. Yet more MEPs suggested more simply that, once a large carnivore species was no longer endangered, it should be subject to 'more efficient and straightforward' management.

Copa-Cogeca secretary general Pekka Pesonen concluded the event by saying that: “No one can deny the fact that large carnivore populations and related damage have increased significantly over the years. Expensive protection measures, which are no longer sufficient, together with the damage caused have a negative impact on the sustainability of our farming activities.

"On top of economic hardships, farmers are now the endangered species in pastoral lands! We agree that the annexes of the Nature Directives need to be updated in order to reflect the situation on the ground and to allow for a more active management of the populations. We also need to listen to and restore the position of farmers in this debate as well as in the management of large carnivores.”