A wolf war showdown is looming

In 2000, Germany had one pack of wolves. By 2022, there were nearly 200. That fall, one of those wolves happened to kill a 30-year-old pony named Dolly. 
The incident would likely have remained a local curiosity had it not been for the pony’s owner: Ursula von der Leyen. 
Instead, the tale — of a rogue wolf taking out an aging pony — suddenly thrust the EU’s top executive into an increasingly bitter and political debate: What should Europe do about the wolf packs spreading across the Continent and attacking sheep, goats and, yes, donkeys?
In Germany, the question has created divisive fights, pitting farmers against conservationists, rural voters against urban voters and giving the far-right Alternative for Germany a potent talking point in its 2019 surge.
Now, von der Leyen is taking the issue to the EU. She wants to downgrade the protections that have allowed wolf populations to surge in most EU countries, with Germany seeing the largest increase.
Her campaign will come to a head this fall. The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch in Brussels, is trying to gather support for its proposal to downgrade wolves from “strictly protected” to “protected” — a classification laid out in the Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife. 
The Commission wants to gather enough support to make the tweak at the convention’s next meeting on Dec. 2 in Strasbourg. That would then clear the way for Brussels to modify the EU’s own rules. 
It won’t be easy. Court rulings have warned against making hunting wolves easier. Rural residents broadly support the protections. And agricultural ministries can’t agree with environmental ministries on what to do. 
To get you ready for the fall showdown, POLITICO tells the story of how we got here in nine charts, pulling out all the facts and figures you need to know.