| ▲ | defrost 2 hours ago |
| The wolves seemingly made it back into the Netherlands on their own: In a paper published in 2016, “The first proof of the recent presence of Wolves in the Netherlands,” authors wrote:
“In light of the expansion of wolves from the Polish border to the northwest of Germany and the sightings in Denmark, the appearance of the wolf in the Netherlands was no surprise to most experts. In March 2015, this expectation was fulfilled when, after generations without resident wolves, a single wolf wandered through the Dutch provinces of Drenthe and Groningen in broad daylight. From 7 to 10 March 2015, the Netherlands witnessed the comeback of an iconic species.”
~ https://wolf.org/wow/europe/netherlands/Wolf numbers are now reportedly at 131 split across roughly 14 packs (April 2026): https://nltimes.nl/2026/04/11/dutch-wolf-population-growing-... I have zero insight into why Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in the Netherlands concluded in a study that "the Netherlands are legally required to contribute between 23 and 56 wolf packs" (Lost in translation? - perhaps "can support and shouldn't cull below these numbers" ?) ~ https://www.wur.nl/en/news/ecological-and-legal-framework-wo... |
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| ▲ | Phemist an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| Dutch version of the WUR page says basically the same thing: "Uit het onderzoeksrapport blijkt dat Nederland juridisch gezien een bijdrage aan de wolvenpopulatie moet leveren van 23 tot 56 roedels. " -> the study concludes that the Netherlands has to contribute to the wolf population from 23 to 56 wolf packs. Reading further: https://edepot.wur.nl/690748 It seems that this is part of a european "habitats directive" for managing biodiversity within Europe. This directive (according to the above paper) determined there need to be around 500 wolf packs across Europe to keep wolves at a stable level without too much inbreeding. The Netherlands was found to be able to "contribute" 23 to 56 wolf packs in this sense. |
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| ▲ | defrost an hour ago | parent [-] | | Ah, cheers for that - I'm on the other side of the planet and was happy to do a bit of light digging on the situation but limited by not having much grasp of the written language. |
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| ▲ | RobotToaster an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Shame they can't swim, it would be good to see them reintroduced to the UK. |
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| ▲ | Razengan an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| If those were wild sheep, and the wolves came there on their own like the other comments said, isn't that just nature working as intended? If those were private sheep, shouldn't they be better guarded? |
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| ▲ | defrost an hour ago | parent [-] | | As a livestock owner not in the Netherlands, yes, people should guard their stock. That's somewhat distinct from going further beyond their boundaries to wipe out threats not directly on their land. | | |
| ▲ | KaiserPro an hour ago | parent [-] | | I think the issue is that for a number of generations parts of europe have not been used to apex predators. In the UK we've not had wolves for >200 years. Which means techniques for dealing with them have been lost, and more importantly didn't evolve with land use change. hearders used to carry weapons, and guard dogs. some places had fainting goats. I'm not sure how wolves would work in the netherlands, as the parts that I know are all way west of the ijssel. I don't imagine that wolves are fen/polder dwellers, but I might be wrong. Again looking at the norfolk/cambridge fens there are plenty of folklore tales https://www.norfolkfolkloresociety.co.uk/post/the-spectral-w... | | |
| ▲ | Razengan an hour ago | parent [-] | | The UK is just sickening for exterminating so many animal species, and now they're after badgers. What the hell is wrong with that country? Who will scold Toad out of his motorcar addiction?? | | |
| ▲ | defrost 11 minutes ago | parent [-] | | You appear to be equating guarding stock with exterminating species, and further making a sweeping generalisation about all(?) landholders "going after badgers". When I answered your question above I was pretty specific in the wording, perhaps you're letting some personal PoV read to much into what others are saying. |
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