Swedish wolf researcher Håkan Sand says Denmark could biologically hold more than 1,000 wolves. Denmark’s minister for nature and animal welfare, Christian Rabjerg Madsen, dismisses the figure as irrelevant to public safety.
The exchange appears in an interview published Tuesday by Avisen Danmark and JydskeVestkysten. Sand studies the Scandinavian wolf population at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Purely biologically, he says, Denmark has room for well over a thousand animals.
According to Naturhistorisk Museum Aarhus and the National Center for Environment and Energy (DCE), Denmark currently has around 49 adult wolves, all in Jutland. Several cubs were probably born in the spring, but no count exists yet. Nordjyske reported in May 2026 that the researchers put the figure at 49 adults by the end of April.
Sand sets the Danish number against Sweden’s. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, Naturvårdsverket, counts about 355 wolves in a country more than ten times the size of Denmark. Sweden could in principle support 2,000 to 3,000 wolves, Sand says, yet Swedish authorities want the population reduced further.
The limit is not space but people, according to the researcher. He says some want more wolves, some want fewer, and some want none. Political pressure to regulate the animal exists because it comes close to humans and kills livestock.
Sand adds that Danes have little reason to fear wolves. The information booklet Fakta om ulv i Danmark, published by Naturhistorisk Museum Aarhus in 2013, dates the last registered wild wolf attack on a human in Scandinavia to Finland in 1882. His advice is to observe a wolf from a distance and never feed it, since feeding makes it accustomed to people.
Minister rejects the biological argument
Christian Rabjerg Madsen (S) told Avisen Danmark that what a researcher thinks about biological capacity is irrelevant. The issue, per the minister, is people’s sense of security. He says he does not consider 1,000 wolves something Danes could live with.
The minister also defended his press conference of Friday, August 14, held in Oksbøl next to a shot problem wolf. Showing the animal was natural, he says, before conspiracy theories about its authenticity could spread on social media.
Naturstyrelsen confirmed in a press release that the wolf was shot near Houstrup, north of Oksbøl, on August 13, inside an established regulation zone. The action followed several incidents in which a wolf approached people without being scared away. TV 2 reported that the animal was tracked with thermal drones and shot from about 10 meters.
The staging drew political criticism. Berlingske reported that parties including the Red-Green Alliance called the event tasteless and compared the imagery to 1920s big-game hunting. Nordjyske noted that the wolf was killed at 21:48 and the public informed roughly ten hours later.
