Shooting ‘deviant’ wolves with paintball guns is legal, Dutch court rules

Increasingly fearless predators found to be serious threat to safety in national parks

Dutch authorities can shoot “deviant” wolves that could pose a danger to the public with paintball guns, a court has ruled, as debate rages in Europe over protecting the animals.

After a lengthy legal battle, the court in Utrecht, central Netherlands, decided on Wednesday that the behaviour of some of the wolves in a national park was “a serious threat to public safety”.