Although the news is already a bit older I have waited to report this to make sure that it isn’t a hoax, prank or urban myth. But luckily it isn’t so I am happy to report that the wolf has officially come back to the Netherlands. I so wished I was the one that made the following picture
The wolf has been spotted near Emmen in the Dutch province of Drenthe which is on the border with Germany. The wolf showed some a-typical behaviour since it didn’t really show “fear” for humans. This can be due to it being fed by individuals in Germany but it is not sure. .Prior to it’s appearance in Drenthe the (most likely) same wolf had been spotted in Germany going in the direction of Holland.
Of course nature organisations in the Netherlands are overjoyed however on the internet there are a lot of (ignorant) people claiming that we now are in need of “protecting our herbivores since there are already so much predators in the Netherlands (the fox is the biggest predator over here)..
A small bit of advice for the reading Dutchies. If you encounter a wolf you are welcome of course to jump with joy and make some great pictures but do not approach it. A cornered wolf can attack and it will be your own doing if you get hurt. However if YOU get hurt due to YOUR stupidity it is most likely that people and certain politicians will say “it attacked someone we need to shoot it” and your stupidity will then be the cause that we have to wait another 2 centuries to see the return of this awesome creature in our woods and fields.
a video (in Dutch) can be found at http://www.hartvannederland.nl/algemeen/2015/hij-nu-echt-terug-nederland-de-wolf/# with some live footage of the wolf. I wasn’t able to rip it so you have to watch it from the link provided. If a countrylock is in place I suggest you try https://www.tunnelbear.com/ where you can download a proxy application with a setting for the Netherlands. 500Mb data is free and an additional 1gig if you send out a tweet. install, set to Netherlands, browse to page, watch video, exit tunnelbear.
I (re) discovered this short poem in my pictures. I guess my statement was not entirely true. THIS was my first poem ever.
When I talk to people about Whizzy, the wolf that is within me, they often look bewildered and confused. The idea of an alter ego in the first place is something many can’t grasp. If I tell them that this alter ego is not just “in my mind” the confusion only grows.
In a night like this (full moon, Blood moon soon rising in the USA) I can not sleep. Primal feelings are conflicting within me. Rage, anger and frustration are swapping constantly with love, peace and kindness. The two wolves of love and hate posted before (and here again ;)) are fighting for victory. The full moon, actually the days before the full moon and the days after as well, are among the most tiresome for me. Sleeping seems impossible and the energy is overflowing.
Spirit wolf by Jocarra from deviantart
In many cultures their are spirit animals and their are many explanations on “how to find your spirit animal or spirit guide”. For me, the wolf presented itself in a vision I had when I was camping alone in the Belgian/Luxembourg forest the Ardennes. I still can recall this vision in my head although I would have a hard time describing it to you. It made itself known a Blaez which I later learned is old Breton for Wolf (did you know that Adolph means Noble Wolf? what a wrong name a certain dictator got) and it was a big dark brown wolf I guess twice the size of a German Shepherd. It took me on a journey and showed me the beauty of our precious mother earth. I have never seen waterfalls in real life, nor have I seen the canyons or fjords up close, yet during this vision they all where presented to me.
Wolfs Magic by ted786 from Deviantart
Now some of you might say that the mushrooms I took that night might have something to do with it and I agree, however.. mushrooms are when used properly, nothing more then a tool to awaken that what is inside us already.
I created Whizzy to represent my “evil” side thus Whizzy is a werewolf. However, since I met Blaez I noticed my “evil” has gone for a great part. I am in no way perfect. Just as everybody else I make mistakes, hurt people, say the wrong things etc. However since that day I also have much less of a problem with just loving people, giving hem my trust and becoming friends with them. I stopped looking at who they are but rather focused on what they represent to be.
What also happened that day si my connection with the animal world. Dogs, cats, birds and deers alike often come to me without me calling them. I can approach almost any animal I encounter without being fearful it will harm me (ok ok I haven’t tried lions and hippos yet) and when I go to the park it can happen that doves/pigeons will land next to me on a bench or even on my shoulder
I love my spirit wolf, Blaez is one of the best things that ever happened to me and I truly wish everyone could experience such an event although I do not recommend using the mushrooms if you never did that before.
The Spirit Wolf:
Through the transient fog of the dark winter night,
peered haunting blue eyes with their soft glowing light.
The powerful stare with its brilliance and intricacy,
brought on a shivering response full of caution and mystery.
They seemed to float through the air with great charm,
in an effort to announce that “they meant you no harm.”
Yet as subtle as the movements had tried to be,
an eerie feeling of desolation abruptly overtook me.
As I fell to the frozen, unforgiving, forest floor,
I noticed those two eyes had been accompanied by two more!
Soon there were three enchanting pairs upon me,
watching and listening, gliding through the trees,
With one final shiver the dark night became black,
I knew as I slept, that I would not be coming back.
I dreamt of a thousand things that night,
mostly about a past I wanted to fix and make right.
The bright morning sun was the next thing I saw,
which was followed by the touch of a rather large paw!
And after providing a steaming kiss on the nose,
the wolf disappeared, and I arose.
In the snow at my feet, there were paw prints all about,
and the surrounding outlines of the bodies, which helped keep the winter out.
The howl which followed, echoed forever it seemed…
conveying the heartfelt message, “you are important to me.”
Gray wolves once ranged across North America. But by the 1930s, they were nearly extinct — trapped, poisoned and hunted by ranchers, farmers, and government agents. With protection under the 1973 Endangered Species Act, the wolf population rebounded. But wolves lost federal protection in 2011.
Now, with hunting permitted in many Western states, the future of this once endangered species may again be in question. Can we live with wolves? Earth Focus travels to Montana and Wyoming to find out.
So one of the reasons that people are afraid of wolves is because the fear for attacks on livestock and/or Humans. How well founded is this fear? let’s take a look at the facts, shall we?
I guess many Americans will be familiar with Politifact and the Oregon section had the following on fatal wolf attacks on Humans in the Rocky Mountain states
In a recent article in The Oregonian, Michelle Dennehy, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, spoke some about those risks.
“Wolves have attacked and killed people in Canada and Alaska,” Dennehy told The Oregonian. “It is extremely rare and has never happened in the Rocky Mountain states, but we advise people to keep your distance from wolves and any wild animals.”
Oregon is home to an estimated 24 wolves, a small population. But a 2010 reportby the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service puts the number of wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountain population (which includes Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and the eastern one-third of Washington and Oregon) at more than 1,650.
This got us wondering whether it could be true that there have been no documented cases of run-ins with wolves in that fairly large area. Plus, we’re always looking for a change of pace.
Because “the vast majority” of global wolf research happens in North America, the report says, wolf attacks in Canada and the U.S. have been extremely well documented. That documentation — and the fact that attacks are so rare — allowed the authors to detail every attack in the past century.
All told, the study’s authors found 18 wolf attacks in North America — 12 in Canada and six in the U.S. Of the attacks in the U.S., four occurred in Alaska (as did an unspecified number of small incidents along a road where truckers had taken to feeding the wolves) and two in Minnesota, in which the victims weren’t injured. Two of the attacks in Alaska left the victim dead of rabies. Both of those happened in the 1940s.
Dennehy also sent us a news clip from a paper up in Saskatchewan that detailed the 2005deathof a young Ontario student who was on a walk near a Saskatchewan mining camp when he was attacked and killed. A sad story to be sure, but one that happened a ways away from the Rocky Mountains.
We try to be thorough, so we also placed a call to the International Wolf Center, an organization that tries to advance the survival of wolves through education.
We spoke to Jess Edberg, who is based in Ely, Minnesota. Minnesota has the most robust wolf population outside of Alaska.
“Overall, in North America and around the world, a wolf attack on humans is very rare,” Edberg said. “In the lower 48, we haven’t had any attacks on humans.”
She added that many of the attacks that do occur often involve sick animals or animals who had been fed or allowed to become accustomed to humans.
Edberg did point out the Alaska Department of Fish and Game had recently concluded that a woman found dead in 2010 on the Alaska Peninsula was killed by wolves.
Finally, she sent us looking for two studies on wolves. One report, which shared an author with the first Norwegian report, looked at Scandinavia and found that over the past 300 years, 94 people have been killed by wolves. All of those cases, the report found, were before 1882 and most were children under the age of 12.
The second, more pertinent report, done in 2002, by Mark E McNay for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game looked at wolf attacks in Alaska and Canada and found that “despite (a) large and widely distributed wolf population, no human deaths have been attributed to wild, healthy wolves since at least 1900, and biting incidents or bluff charges are rare enough to warrant publication in scientific journals.”
Of course, that report was published before the two deaths we mentioned above.
History and perception of wolf attacks worldwide
Europe
Map showing the number of wolf attacks in France by département from 1400 to 1918.
Map of Eurasia showing the distribution of wolf attacks, with blue indicating areas where both rabid and predatory attacks occurred, purple for purely predatory attacks and green for purely rabid ones.
Chart showing the hypothetical stages leading up to wolf attacks on humans in 15th-19th century Italy.While these factors are now largely absent in modern-day Europe, they are still present in rural India, where many attacks took place during the late 20th century.
In France, historical records compiled by rural historian Jean-Marc Moriceau indicate that during the period 1362–1918, nearly 7,600 people were killed by wolves, of whom 4,600 were killed by non-rabid wolves. Numerous attacks occurred in Germany during the 17th century after the thirty years war, though the majority probably involved rabid wolves. Although Italy has no records of wolf attacks after WWII and the eradication of rabies in the 1960s, historians examining church and administrative records from northern Italy’s central Po Valley region (which includes a part of modern daySwitzerland) found 440 cases of wolves attacking people between the 15th and 19th centuries. The 19th century records show that between 1801-1825, there were 112 attacks, 77 of which resulted in death. Of these cases, only five were attributed to rabid animals. In Latvia, records of rabid wolf attacks go back two centuries. At least 72 people were bitten between 1992-2000. Similarly, in Lithuania, attacks by rabid wolves have continued to the present day, with 22 people having been bitten between 1989-2001.Around 82 people were bitten by rabid wolves in Estonia during the 18th to 19th centuries, with a further 136 people being killed in the same period by non-rabid wolves, though it is likely that the animals involved in the latter cases were a combination of wolf-dog hybrids and escaped captive wolves.
Russia and the Soviet Union
As with North American scientists later on (see below), several Russian zoologists after the October Revolution cast doubt on the veracity of records involving wolf-caused deaths. Prominent among them was zoologist Petr Aleksandrovich Manteifel, who initially regarded all cases as either fiction or the work of rabid animals. His writings were widely accepted among Russian zoological circles, though he subsequently changed his stance when he was tasked with heading a special commission after WWII investigating wolf attacks throughout the Soviet Union, which had increased during the war years. A report was presented in November 1947 describing numerous attacks, including ones perpetrated by apparently healthy animals, and gave recommendations on how to better defend against them. The Soviet authorities prevented the document from reaching both the public and those who would otherwise be assigned to deal with the problem. All mention of wolf attacks was subsequently censored.
Asian Hakurou by WildSpiritWolf
Asia
In Iran, 98 attacks were recorded in 1981] and 329 people were given treatment for rabid wolf bites in 1996. Records of wolf attacks in India began to be kept during the British colonial administration in the 19th century. In 1875, more people were killed by wolves than tigers, with the worst affected areas being the North West Provinces and Bihar. In the former area, 721 people were killed by wolves in 1876, while in Bihar, the majority of the 185 recorded deaths at the time occurred mostly in the Patna and Bghalpur Divisions. In the United Provinces, 624 people were killed by wolves in 1878, with 14 being killed during the same period in Bengal. In Hazaribagh, Bihar, 115 children were killed between 1910-1915, with 122 killed and 100 injured in the same area between 1980-1986. Between April 1989 to March 1995, wolves killed 92 people in southern Bihar, accounting for 23% of 390 large mammal attacks on humans in the area at that time. Police records collected from Korean mining communities during Japanese ruleindicate that wolves attacked 48 people in 1928, more than those claimed by boars, bears, leopards and tigers combined.
North America
There were no written records of wolf attacks on humans prior to the European colonization of the Americas, though the oral history of some Native American tribes confirms that wolves occasionally did kill humans. Tribes living in woodlands feared wolves more than their tundra-dwelling counterparts, as they could encounter wolves suddenly and at close quarters.Skepticism among North American scientists over the alleged ferocity of wolves began when Canadian biologist Doug Clark investigated historical wolf attacks in Europe and, based on his own experiences with the relatively timid wolves of the Canadian wilderness, concluded that all historical attacks were perpetrated by rabid animals, and that healthy wolves posed no threat to humans. Although his findings were later criticized for failing to distinguish between rabid and predatory attacks, and the fact that the historical literature contained instances of people surviving the attacks at a time when there was no rabies vaccine, his conclusions were nonetheless adopted by other North American biologists. This view subsequently gained popularity among laypeople with the publication of Farley Mowat‘s semi-fictional 1963 book Never Cry Wolf, with the language barrier hindering the collection of further data on wolf attacks elsewhere.Although some North American biologists were aware of wolf attacks in Eurasia, they dismissed them as irrelevant to North American wolves.
By the 1970s, the fear of wolves was largely counteracted by the emergence of a pro-wolf lobby aiming to change public attitudes towards wolves, with the phrase “there has never been a documented case of a healthy wild wolf attacking a human in North America” (or variations thereof) becoming the mantra of people trying to create a more positive image of the wolf. Although several non fatal attacks had been reported since 1985, it wasn’t until April 26, 2000 when a 6-year-old boy survived an attack by a wolf in Icy Bay, Alaska that the assumption that healthy wild wolves were harmless became seriously challenged. The event was considered so unusual that it was reported in newspapers throughout the entire United States. Following the Icy Bay incident, biologist Mark E. McNay compiled a record in 2002 of wolf-human encounters in Canada and Alaska from 1915-2001. Of the 80 described encounters, 39 involved aggressive behavior from apparently healthy wolves and 12 from animals confirmed to be rabid.The first fatal attack in the 21st century occurred in 2005, when a man was killed in Saskatchewan, Canada by wolves that had been habituated to humans, while in 2010, a woman was killed whilst jogging near Chignik Lake in Alaska.
basically….. there is no reason to fear a wolf attack however when in wolf country always be cautious. We all need to protest against this delisting and start protecting the wolf. One way of doing this is by supporting Wolf Haven International (and if you want more wolfhaven you might visit this blog done by one of their caretakers )
Coincidentally this week is Loboweek so I thought it a good idea to have some attention for this.. I learned about this when I visited the WHI Facebook page which took me to The Wolf Conservation Centre at http://nywolf.org/ which provided the following information.
#LoboWeek – Join the Movement!
On March 29, 1998, 11 captive-reared Mexican gray wolves (Canis lupus baileyi) were released to the wild for the first time in the Blue Range Recovery Area of Arizona and New Mexico. Missing from the landscape for more than 30 years, the howl of the rarest and most unique subspecies of gray wolf, was once again greeted by the mountains of the southwest. This March, marks the 16th anniversary of this historic event, a significant milestone for the lobo and wildlife conservation. In recognition of the anniversary, the WCC is among the rapidly growing group of partners participating #LoboWeek, an international movement to educate people about the Mexican wolf or “lobo” and our efforts to successfully restore this critically endangered wolf to its ancestral home in the wild.
Become a Partner!
Starting March 23rd, we’re enlisting Wildlife Organizations, Zoos, Advocacy Groups, Businesses, and individuals like you to come together with one common purpose – to raise awareness for the most genetically distinct subspecies of gray wolf in North America, the Mexican gray wolf.
#LoboWeek is harnessing the power of social media to broaden our reach to and create a national moment. All week (March 23rd-29th) #LoboWeek partners are dedicating time to the lobo on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and other social media; offering information, fun facts, special events, contests and more.
How to become a partner
It’s up to you how you choose to celebrate, but by following the simple steps below, our united efforts can help #LoboWeek take its place on the calendar and help make history!
Please follow the steps below and also email maggie@nywolf.org so we can track how large our #LoboWeek pack is growing!
FACEBOOK during March 23 – 29:
Step One: Update your Facebook cover photo. (the banner photo, not profile picture) to reflect something related to Lobo. People can use their own photo or one of ours (See below *)
Step Two: Overlay the #LoboWeek badge (it has a transparent background) on your cover photo. CLICK HERE to download the badge.
* CLICK HERE to download a cover with badge (lots of options).
Step Three: A commitment help raise awareness for the lobo by posting, sharing, and educating on your Facebook page.
TWITTER during March 23 – 29:
We connect on Twitter by using #LoboWeek on all lobo related tweets
Retweeting partner’s tweets is a great way to show that our mission to educate people is united effort.
Double Your Donation to the Wolf Conservation Center on March 26th!
In honor of this significant milestone for the lobo and wildlife conservation, Wolf Conservation Center supporters Amy Wendel and Dan Meisel are providing a matching grant up to $5,000 for all donations received on Wednesday March 26th to help support the WCC’s efforts to save the lobo!
Save the date! Your support will help the WCC continue its commitment to the lobo and the recovery efforts necessary for this critically endangered species to sustain itself in the future.
This Organization will be the subject of the MCM in a few months since I do not want two similar causes back to back but Loboweek seems to me a perfect ending for this months cause.
Wolf Haven International (WHI) is a 501(c)(3) organization that has worked
for wolf conservation since 1982. The mission of WHI is to conserve and
protect wolves and their habitat. We do this by:
• Providing sanctuary for captive born wolves
• Educating the public on the value of all wildlife
• Promoting wolf restoration
• Protecting our remaining wild wolves and their habitat
For 30 years, WHI has rescued and provided lifetime sanctuary to over 170
animals. We are participants in two Species Survival Plan (SSP) programs
for endangered species: 1) Mexican grey and 2) red wolf. These are
partnerships between captive facilities, the Association of Zoos and
Aquariums (AZA) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As an SSP member,
WHI has successfully bred both red wolves and Mexican wolves. We have
also had eleven of our SSP Mexican grey wolves released into the
wilderness of the Southwest.
Our sanctuary and education department welcome over 12,000 visitors
each year. Guided walking tours, eco-scavenger hunts, interpretive games,
camping and prairie walks inspire our visitors to observe, interact, and
appreciate wildlife of all kinds.
WHI owns 82 acres of pristine Mima Mound prairie, wetlands and
woodlands. We partner with The Center for Natural Lands Management,
state and federal Fish and Wildlife, the Audubon Society and other
environmental organizations to preserve and restore native plants,
butterflies and mammals to the prairie.
Travelers from other countries, out-of-state, local residents, school
children, youth groups, seniors, and families all come here to experience
the magic of Wolf Haven International.
On a side note. The people of Wolf Haven have seen my MCM blog and have send me a nice email thanking me for this which of course is greatly appreciated and I have done so with pleasure. If (or as soon as) they have added more (non credit card) payment options I will be adopting a wolf myself and I urge all of my readers to either do the same or to donate in another way. Donation/adoption info can be found at the donation pages at WHI. WolfHavenInternational has been “adopted” by this blog as ongoing Cause. A logo will be placed in my sidebar and their info can always be found in the MCM area of this blog
The wolf in the Netherlands receives a legally protected status.This means that it should not be hunted. Wild animalFarmers whose animals were eaten by a wolf, get compensation.
This writes Dijksma Secretary of Agriculture in a letter to the Lower House.In recent times, some reports have been published about the expected arrival of the wolf to the Netherlands.Netherlands must prepare, said Dijksma.
Return
Wolves can survive in the Netherlands because there is enough food, such as deer and wild boar.
Dijksma wants to focus on the coming of the wandering, living alone wolf.About 15 kilometers from the Dutch border with Germany is such a solitary wolf identified, and 200 kilometers from the border a pack of wolves.In eastern Germany wolves live in groups.
1000km
It is unclear when the wolf will set foot on Dutch soil.Young wolves leave their homeland after two years and pack in search of a natural habitat and a partner.They can make or 1,000 kilometers.
Wolves are not dangerous for humans but farmers fear their arrival because they eat sheep, goats and poultry.These animals are often in a pasture without a locked gate.A wolf can therefore easily reach its prey.So there are compensations for damages “caused by protected animal species kept commercially farmed animals.”
Bullet Holes
Last year a dead wolf in Luttelgeest was found in Flevoland.He proved himself to have come to the Netherlands.In the body of the wolf were two bullet holes in his stomach, and investigators found the remains of a beaver.The wolf appeared to be shot in the Carpathians and here are laid along the way.
Wolves live in many European countries such as France, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria and Russia.
As you know, Wolf Haven International is the first cause in my MCM series and they posted the following information today on Facebook
After so many recent losses, we are very pleased to announce that our newest resident, Lexi, is now available for adoption. She is the fifth wolf or wolfdog from Wolf Country, a now-defunct tourist attraction in Alaska, to eventually call Wolf Haven home (others are Eve, Klondike, Samantha and recently deceased Bono). Free from 8-ft drag chains, Lexi is now London’s enclosure mate, following the recent passing of Kiawatha. We are grateful to Lockwood Animal Rescue Center (LARC) for their initial rescue of 30 animals from Wolf Country. Now, hereeeeeeeeee’s Lexi!
Lexi, the newest addition to the WHI pack, click the image to go to their site
To phrase my good friend Whizzy. AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH welcome to the sanctuary Lexi, have a great and long live
As you all know, I am a member of an amazing group of bloggers united in the Wolfpack. I have joined this group a few weeks ago and they all have great “proud follower of…” images. They are made bu Patty, the author of http://petitemagique.wordpress.com/
She made me the following picture for you to take if you want to let others know you follow my blog
So a big huge Thank you to Patty. She made all the images for our pack
A few weeks ago I was kindly accepted within the WordPress Wolfpack (or the Wolfpack on WP and the WP share your blog page) Here you will find an introduction of the members.
Do you want to visit the members then follow the following links
The text in the black wolf/white wolf picture reads:
A native American Chief was teaching his grandson about life
He said “There are two wolves fighting in each and everyone of us”
One is pride, greed, anger, jealousy, hate and resentment while the other is Love, humbleness, faith, hope, happiness and courage”
The grandson asked “Which wolf will win?”
The Chief replied “The one you feed”
Which wolf will you feed?
Think about it and start making a difference
The Eurasian wolf (Canis lupus lupus), also known as the European, common or forest wolf, is a subspecies of gray wolf which has the largest range among wolf subspecies and is the most common in Europe and Asia, ranging through Mongolia, China, Russia, Scandinavia, Western Europe,Caucasus, the Himalayan Mountains and Balkans. Compared to their North American cousins, Eurasian wolves tend to have longer, more highly placed ears, narrower heads, more slender loins and coarser, tawnier coloured fur Compared to Indian wolves, Eurasian wolves are larger, and have longer, broader skulls. In Europe, wolves rarely form large packs like in North America, as their lives are more strongly influenced by human activities.Because of this, Eurasian wolves tend to be more adaptable than North American wolves in the face of human expansion.
There used to be a time when the European wolf roamed freely through my country. It was a time when we had 11 or less provinces instead of 12, when a “big city” had the size of a big town now. When manure was still hauled with horse and carriage, when wooden shoes where footwear instead of tourist traps. Internet…heck television was not yet here and radio still in it’s early stages. They used to roam throughout the country from the borders with Belgium and Germany to the shores of the North sea.
However as wolves are predators by nature, and we humans grew in population, more and more often we entered each others territory and humans being humans the wolf got driven back step by step. First losing their wolves where the western provinces of Noord and Zuid Holland (North Holland and South Holland) but unsure when exactly. anyway it has been somewhere around 1680, my province Utrecht (yes the province has the same name as it’s capital in this case) was next with the last wolf spotted around 1775. Drenthe,Gelderland and Limburg followed soon (up to 1840). The last wolf that was killed is a matter of debate but it was either in Schinveld – Limburg in1869 or Helvoirt – Noord Brabant in 1881. The last wolf seen in the Netherlands (up to recently) was in Heeze also in Noord Brabant in 1897, this sighting however is subject of debate as well. Around the same time the wolf disappeared in Belgium as well and it got eventually driven back as far as Spain, Italy and the Eastern European countries.
And so the wolf disappeared from my country not to be seen back for more then a century.
The Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats, also known as the Bern Convention (or Berne Convention), is a binding international legal instrument in the field of Nature Conservation, it covers the natural heritage in Europe, as well as in some African countries. The Convention was open for signature on 19 September 1979 and came into force on 1 June 1982. It is particularly concerned about protecting natural habitats and endangered species, including migratory species. Among these species was the European wolf. Due to this agreement the wolf was able to recover greatly over the last decades slowly making it’s way back over European soil towards the Netherlands. Since 1998 packs are known to roam through the German region of Lausitz and in the bordering part of western Poland the population is growing. Packs now roam at less than 200 km/124 miles and lone wolves are spotted in the border areas as well and then came July the fourth 2013.
This day marked the moment that the fist wolf after almost 150 years was found dead in the Netherlands near the town of Luttelgeest. Luttelgeest is situated in the province of Flevoland. It is the province that didn’t even existed when we still had wolves, in fact by then it was called Zuiderzee (southern sea) and it was a big body of water
Initially everybody thought the animal had died due to an accident however autopsy proved that it was a case of humans being humans and of course some *^&%$bleeping&*^^%*& bleep bleep had shot the poor animal. It was a She wolf and in her stomach where the remains of a beaver found proving that the animal had not escaped from captivity but was a free roamer.
The 1.5 to 2 years old she-wolf is almost certainly came from Eastern Czech Republic, through Southern Poland and Slovakia into the Netherlands and has roamed some 900 kilometers (560 miles). This distance is not uncommon for young wolves that leave their pack to find a new territory
Now this She-Wolf has been found, it is likely there are more loners roaming through the country according to researchers from the Wageningen University. And that brings us to the future of the wolf in the Netherlands.
I am having mixed feelings about this. On one hand I am thrilled to know that we have this beautiful creature back in our woods, it shows nature around here can’t be all that fekked up as we feared and it might help us to control the deer population during harsh winters. On the other hand do I fear. I fear not for myself or my friends and neighbors, no I fear for the wolf.
As you might know our country is small and within that small area we have a crapload of people living and working. in fact we rank 30 in the world when it comes to population density while we come in at 127 if ranked by size. This means hunting grounds for lone wolves are present and for those game is in abundance. However if packs will be formed (and we all know that nature MUST have it’s course so they WILL be formed) the amount of game suddenly is a lot less available. Wolves being wolves this might lead to attacks on livestock and pets which of course will lead to a witch wolf hunt complete with pitchforks, torches and stakes led by the “hunting elite” (I have nothing against hunting for food or when a population obviously grows to big for it’s own good but I am against the ‘party hunts” that serve no other purpose then the enjoyment of the participants.
Besides the hunters you also have the fools, the ignorant and the plain stupid that look at NatGeo or Animal planet, see documentaries about people that “walk with wolves” and assume that “anything they can do I can do it better too” the dumbfounded fathers that go and take their kids to “go see some real dogs” and the photo enthusiasts that will stalk (well TRY to stalk) the animals for some “cool shots”
In the end I am afraid that I can’t do anything about it and have nature run it’s course. I hope that wildlife organizations will at least make sure to educate the public before more wolves are spotted and that my fellow Dutchmen will be able to show some restraint. Only then will this magnificent animal have a chance to live and breed and prosper
![By Malene Thyssen (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Skandinavisk_dyrepark.jpg "By Malene Thyssen (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons")
Mavadelo's mindscape 