MINISTER CRITICISES AU RESEARCHERS' WOLF ASSESSMENT – AND CHOOSES TO DISREGARD IT

Updated 10.10.25 at 17.30 with comment from Minister for Green Transition, Jeppe Bruus (Social Democrats).

Since the first wolf in modern times crossed the border from Germany back in 2012, there has been great interest in knowing how large the population of wolves is in Denmark. Since 2018, researchers from the Danish Centre for Environment and Energy (DCE) at Aarhus University, led by Professor Peter Sunde, have been responsible for monitoring the wolf population in Denmark and advising the authorities in this area, in collaboration with the Museum of Natural History in Aarhus. 

Although Peter Sunde is among the first to call the wolf "a socially peripheral issue", he has repeatedly observed that the wolf attracts significant political attention and can make headlines in the media. Nevertheless, he was surprised when his assessment of the wolf population in Denmark recently became the subject of criticism from a sitting minister.

In Jyllands-Posten on 16 September, Minister for the Green Transition, Jeppe Bruus (Social Democrats), was quoted as saying that experts place too much emphasis on the wolf when estimating how many wolves Denmark can accommodate.

"I think there has been too much emphasis on understanding the biology of the wolf and too little emphasis on the neighbors and sheep farmers' conditions," the minister says to the newspaper. 

In the article, the minister also criticises the fact that the researchers have changed the method used to calculate the number of wolves, and says that he ‘almost had it presented in the press that they had now changed the calculation method at DCE,’ without him having had any influence on it as minister.

TAKES CRITICISM SERIOUSLY – BUT DOESN'T UNDERSTAND IT

Peter Sunde takes the criticism seriously. He believes that, in principle, this is what a researcher and a university should do when faced with criticism. 

"Regardless of whether the criticism is justified or not, it should be taken seriously, and the person making the criticism should be asked to specify it. If the criticism is justified, you have to acknowledge it, learn from it, and, if necessary, make changes. But even if the criticism is unjustified, it’s still serious because it can undermine the university's authority as an impartial research institution and my authority as a researcher," he says.

When asked how he, as a researcher, relates to the specific criticism from the minister, Peter Sunde replies:

"We don't understand the criticism." 

"A sitting minister criticises our professional work for not having taken social considerations into account, saying it has been tendentious. But exactly what is the substance of the criticism, I cannot get a grip on," he says, and states that he has not received further clarification from the ministry.

That researchers, in a population assessment, must take sheep farmers and neighbors  into account, as the minister stated to Jyllands-Posten, makes no sense, Peter Sunde points out: 

"We have been given a task and a clear instruction. If we had deviated from it, it would’ve been a dereliction of duty. We perform biological analyses based on biological premises. Politicians can then choose to follow or not follow these analyses, and then it goes from being professional advice to becoming policy. As researchers, we shouldn’t take a position on political matters, and politics must be kept completely out of biological analyses," he states.

HAS INFORMED ABOUT THE NEED FOR A NEW METHOD 

Peter Sunde rejects the minister’s claim that he was not informed about the researchers’ change in method for counting wolves. As early as 2024, the researchers announced that they were forced to change the method for counting wolves as a result of too few resources for DNA samples in relation to the increased wolf population, which increases the uncertainty of the analyses. This was also stated in the latest memo the researchers sent to the ministry and published on March 21 of this year.

"Of course, it has also been communicated continuously to the Agency for Green Transition and Aquatic Environment (under the Ministry of Green Transition, ed.) as the monitoring contract includes the possibility of increasing the number of DNA samples as needed, which we, of course, pointed out we believed was necessary.”

Peter Sunde further explains that on 7 May, he provided the minister and a large part of the Danish Parliament’s Environment and Food Committee with an account of the assessment method. This is confirmed by a briefing sent by the Minister to the Environment and Food Committee on 12 May (in Danish). 

If the minister wants the researchers to go back to the old method, it would be possible, says Peter Sunde, provided that wolf monitoring is allocated additional resources to carry out the necessary number of DNA analyses. 

MINISTER GOES AGAINST RESEARCHERS' ADVICE  

The number of wolves in Denmark is politically interesting because the Minister for the Green Transition has this week reported the wolf's conservation status to the European Commission. The conservation status of the wolf is important for the possibility of regulating the wolf population, i.e., introducing hunting of wolves. A species' conservation status is determined based on its distribution, population size, habitat and prospects. With the new method, DCE estimates the Danish wolf population at 42 individuals, compared with 56 in 2023 based on the old method. 

Omnibus has asked the minister why he believes that a method, widely used both nationally and internationally to estimate animal populations, including wolves in several European countries, cannot be applied to calculating the Danish wolf population. To this, the minister replies in a written reply:

"The Agency for Green Transition and Aquatic Environment has pointed out that there will be a need for more precise data when wanting to manage wolves in Denmark. With the upcoming counting method and model for the wolf assessment, we’ll find out how many wolves we have and how many can be accommodated. This will give us a better basis for regulating the wolf – as soon as possible."

But according to DR, the minister reported to the European Commission on Wednesday that the wolf population in Denmark is 'unknown', thereby undermining the DCE researchers' report. Speaking to DR, the minister called for a "professional, factual basis to stand on" and an assessment model that can simulate the population under different conditions. 

As a result, Leila Stockmarr, the Red-Green Alliance’s spokesperson for climate, environment, nature and transport, has asked the minister to clarify ‘in which instances the authorities have chosen not to follow the scientific assessment and/or recommendations from DCE or other official advisors concerning the reporting of conservation status for protected species and habitats under the Habitats Directive.  

By changing the wolf population to ‘unknown’, the minister also ensures that the wolf's conservation status in West Jutland – and thereby the possibility of regulating it – goes from being 'strongly unfavourable' to being 'favourable'.  

But regardless of whether the new or the old assessment method is used, the population is still far from the threshold of 100 individuals, which DCE has previously considered as a possible limit for when the wolf population can be managed, Peter Sunde emphasises. 

THE UNIVERSITY MUST STEP IN

Peter Sunde has commented on the minister's criticism in several media outlets. But he would also like the university to make its mark in this and other cases where the university's research and consultancy are subject to criticism in the public. 

"We have seen in several contexts that the university is criticised for being tendentious. It is important that the university, as a research institution, requires that the criticism be specified, so that it can be determined whether it has any substance – and also to ensure that it doesn’t appear to the public that the university is engaging in value politics." 

Peter Sunde himself admits to being piqued by the criticism challenging his professionalism as a researcher. 

"My role in this might be less important, but criticism like this can still damage the university's reputation," he says. 

DIRECTOR OF DCE FINDS MINISTERIAL CRITICISM INCOMPREHENSIBLE

Maria Sommer Holtze is the director of DCE. Like Peter Sunde, she finds the ministers’ criticism of DCE’s wolf population assessment incomprehensible. She has spoken to several journalists about the issue and is quoted in Jyllands-Posten and has given a written reply to Radio IIII. 

“We have only received the minister’s criticism regarding the specific case of the wolf population assessment through the press. Apparently, the criticism is that we should consider the conditions of neighbors and sheep farmers when assessing the wolf population, but that has not been part of our task. However, we are happy to engage in dialogue with the ministry if there are new tasks they would like us to solve," Maria Sommer Holtze says. 

When asked about her approach to handling the case in the press, Maria Sommer Holtze replies:

"It has been crucial to my approach that it is difficult to understand what the minister is specifically criticising. If we are to do things differently, we need to have a dialogue with the ministry where they specify what we need to do differently," she says, adding that it is always a specific assessment of how DCE chooses to respond to criticism, but that the answer will always be professional.  

"Our job is to be biologists, not to be politicians. That is within our remit," she says.

VICE-DEAN: WE DON’T WANT RESEARCH ADVICE TO BE POLITICISED

Ole Hertel, Vice-dean for Research-Based Public Sector Consultancy and Business Collaboration at the Faculty of Technical Sciences, explains that the faculty's researchers advise authorities in a number of areas that attract a great deal of political attention, and where, for example, there may be conflicts between environmental interests and business. 

"We sometimes experience criticism from politicians or from private organisations – also in the form of very personal persecution of individual researchers," he says. 

He doesn’t want to comment directly on the current case of the wolf assessment, which is handled under the auspices of DCE. But he says that when such conflicts arise, the faculty generally focuses on supporting and protecting the individual researcher and protecting the university's reputation. 

"When we receive public criticism, as in this case with wolf monitoring, our practice is to decide how to handle the matter in dialogue with the researcher, management, and communications staff. Who is involved in handling each case is a specific assessment on a case-by-case basis. From management's side, we have on several occasions defended our employees by emphasising that the advice they provide is impartial and research-based, and not a personal opinion," Ole Hertel says, adding that the faculty typically responds to criticism by allowing a head of department or a centre director to make a statement.

In terms of protecting the university's reputation, AU's ISO-certified quality assurance system is the best protection, according to Ole Hertel. The system must ensure quality and transparency throughout the process up to the delivery of a service.

But it may seem like a somewhat defensive approach. Why not take a more offensive approach as an institution and rebuke unjustified criticism in, for example, opinion pieces or media appearances? Surely it also wears down the institution's reputation over time if AU, from time to time, receives criticism without the institution clearly rebuking it?

"We have a professional and factual approach and do not want research advice to be politicised. And we try to be more proactive, for example, by taking up issues that we expect will spark public debate. Among other things, we have organised online press briefings on current topics and produced explainers, in which we use simple language to clarify complex scientific issues. But we are constantly looking at how it can be improved, so that we can make it visible to the population that our work is professional and factual," says Ole Hertel.

This text was machine translated and post-edited by Lisa Enevoldsen

Updated 13.10.25 at 14.30 with correction. It was previously stated that the latest memo was sent to the ministry 11 days before it was published on 1 April. Peter Sunde states: “After the article was published, I have been made aware that I incorrectly stated the date of publication of the memo as 1 April 2025. The memo was published on the same day that the The Agency for Green Transition and Aquatic Environment received the final version, namely on 21 March. This is a misunderstanding on my part, which is due to the fact that DCE and the Natural History Museum Aarhus published news about the memo on 1 April.”