A wolf that causes problems is apparently not a problem wolf yet

Almost twenty times a wolf jumped in a few months with the same sheep holder over the fence in the municipality of Barneveld, Gelderland. Night cameras show how the animal takes a casual leap and walks around for a while. More than sixty sheep have been attacked in various incidents, Write local media At the beginning of September.

DNA analysis of four incidents stated in August that Wolf GW4003M was De Springer. The province gave a shielding permit at the beginning of this month, because the repeated behavior would make the wolf a problem wolf. Animal Rights and the fauna protection promoted summary proceedings against this.

The deployment: Wolves such as GW4003M, who have found a way to get over the wolf -resistant fences, can be killed? On Friday, the judge bent in summary proceedings about this question. Until now, a judge only gave permission to shoot a wolf in two cases: in the province of Utrecht and in Gelderland, after the animals had bitten runners and children. This time it is not about an attack on people, but on cattle. The judge will make a decision on Thursday 2 October.

Problem wolf, or just problem?

There is not yet a national wolf approach, which contains clear rules for shooting wolves. The protection status of the Wolf, in the European Habitats Directive, has recently changed from ‘strictly protected’ to ‘protected’. How countries that translate change into local policy on catching and killing wolves is still unclear. Outgoing State Secretary Jean Rummenie (Nature, BBB) wants to broaden conditions for this in the Netherlands, a plan that the Council of State recently advised negatively.

As if a dentist immediately pulls the whole teeth with someone with a toothache, I have that feeling about this

In a plan, research should be taken about what is now a healthy population of wolves in the Netherlands. On Friday, Wageningen University Research published that there is room in the Netherlands for many more packs (possibly fifty) than there are currently (thirteen or fourteen), but Rummenie thinks that is “not usable”. According to European rules, wolves could still only be caught or killed in ‘exceptional circumstances’.

Zoom in

Sometimes normal wolf behavior can cause a problem situation, but that does not make a problem wolf yet In the Wolvenplan of the provinces, a guideline that was updated at the beginning of 2025. In examples from the plan, the ‘Problemwolf’ label is used when preventive and deterrent measures do not change the behavior of the nuisance wolf. Only then can the province apply for a permit to “remove the wolf from the population.”

For example, if a wolf has learned how grids can be circumvented, according to the intervention directive of the Wolvenplan. In the court, the province of Gelderland mainly had to explain at the end of last week why it does not take alternative measures, writes ANP news agency. “As if a dentist immediately pulls the whole teeth with someone with a toothache, I am left with that feeling,” the judge said.

Learning capacity

Wolven experts take into account the learning capacity of wolves. “If wolves learn to overcome wolf -resistant graters, you get copy behavior,” said biologist Maurice La Haye of the Mammal Association about this in De Gelderlander. Some livestock farmers see the spring art of the Gelderse Wolf GW4003M as confirmation that wolf -resistant rasters do not work. They do work, Bij12 emphasizes, the organization that monitors the Wolf for provinces.

Yet it happens that a wolf jumps over it.

Also on the heath near Ede, a wolf attacked sheep last week who sat behind a wolf -resistant fence, Herder Henk van den Brandhof said De Gelderlander Thursday. The wolf blew twenty sheep from his herd.

Their system still worked so well, his brother, also shepherd, showed last year In the same newspaper. This was the first wolf attack for the two, which together hate around 430 sheep – while wolves have been walking around in the area for years. The shepherd brothers do not dare to let their cattle out of the sheep cages for the time being.

In the Gelderland case, the jump at Barneveld, the grid seemed wrong, said a Bij12 spokesperson in return for RTL News: It functioned and was well placed. Animal rights organizations questioned that in court on Friday. Reports of the wolven attacks would show that the fence was not the required 1.20 meters high, according to the lawyers.

Wolven -resistant fences

In 2024 there were a total of fourteen wolf attacks behind (approved) wolf -resistant fences, and seventeen this year so far. For comparison: last year, 770 attacks on cattle were registered according to the ANP news agency, which analyzed data from Bij12 in August. According to BIJ12, the vast majority of the livestock farmers affected had taken insufficient preventive measures.

The number of wolf attacks on cattle increases every year. Yet animals such as wild boar, roe deer and red deer are the fixed cost of wolves in the Netherlands, researchers concluded who examined excrements of Dutch wolves.

The judge doubted, pending the ruling in the beginning of October, whether alternative methods were sufficiently used in the case of Wolf GW4003M, before they were labeled as a problem wolf. “If a wolf comes by every two or three days to attack sheep, you should do something extra on that plot. We are talking about a protected species here. And this wolf does not like people, but other animals. I find that problem a little less acute.”

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