The Supreme Court has ruled that the Environmental Board’s 2020 order authorizing the hunting of wolves was unlawful because the agency failed to take into account the Bern Convention, under which wolves were still subject to strict protection at the time.
The Environmental Board’s order allowed 140 wolves to be hunted in Estonia during the 2020/2021 hunting season. The NGO Estonian Large Carnivores (Eesti Suurkiskjad) challenged the decision in court, arguing that the wolf population was not in a favorable condition and that hunting such a large number of animals would not allow it to recover.
The main issue before the Supreme Court was whether wolf protection should have been assessed under the European Union’s Habitats Directive or under the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats, known as the Bern Convention.
Before joining the European Union in 2004, Estonia sought an exemption under the Habitats Directive that would allow it to apply a less stringent protection regime for wolves. Estonia had already joined the Bern Convention in 1992 and, unlike Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, did not seek an exemption regarding wolf protection.
In its ruling issued Friday, the Supreme Court’s Administrative Law Chamber explained that the exemption granted to Estonia under the directive did not relieve the country of its obligation to implement the convention’s requirements. The court said it was possible to comply with both the convention and the directive at the same time, since EU law does not prevent Estonia from applying stricter nature conservation requirements than those set out in the directive.
According to the court, the Environmental Board made a significant error of judgment by failing to take the convention’s stricter requirements into account when issuing the wolf hunting order and instead relying incorrectly on the more lenient protection standard derived from the directive.
In 2023, the Supreme Court also sought a preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union in the case to clarify what criteria an EU member state must consider when assessing the conservation status of wolves.
In its 2025 preliminary ruling, the CJEU said assessments must be based on the best available scientific data and that, if analyzing the evidence does not eliminate uncertainty, authorities must follow the precautionary principle. The Supreme Court said that, in the case of wolves, applying the precautionary principle could mean, for example, not relying on the most optimistic scientific estimates of their population size.
The CJEU also stated that a species’ status must first be assessed at the local and national levels. Populations outside the country may be taken into account only if there is cross-border movement. Wolf migration may be reduced, for example, by the construction of border fences. Since Russia and Belarus are not parties to the Bern Convention, wolves there may also lack adequate protection.
Since 2025, wolves have been subject to a less stringent protection regime under both the Bern Convention and the EU Habitats Directive, but that did not affect the assessment of the legality of the Environmental Board’s earlier order.
Estonian Large Carnivores filed a complaint against the Environmental Board’s 2020 decision setting wolf hunting quotas, arguing that the quotas were too high, endangered Estonia’s wolf population, were not based on scientific evidence and were inconsistent with nature conservation objectives.
Both the administrative court and the circuit court dismissed the complaint, finding that the Environmental Board’s decision was lawful. The NGO then appealed to the Supreme Court and asked it to seek a preliminary ruling from the CJEU on whether wolf hunting in Estonia could be contrary to European Union nature conservation requirements.
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