“How do I feel? Resigned,” says Reinier van Klinken. The former shepherd is thus responding to the fact that the flock of sheep on the moors of De Strubben-Kniphorstbos near Anloo has thinned out since last night. Two sheep were found in a ditch by shepherds this afternoon, while one is still missing. “Hunted and drowned,” says Van Klinken resolutely.
Although he is no longer a shepherd, he still occasionally helps the current shepherds with the sheep herd. When he found the dead sheep, he knew one thing for sure. “No wolf was involved here,” he says. But what has happened actually frustrates him even more. “This is simply the result of someone walking their dog in the area, chasing the sheep, after which two drowned. That the shepherds found no bite marks says it all.”
“In a manner of speaking, you would rather it had been a wolf,” Van Klinken continues. By that he means that it would have been a kind of force majeure. “And now something like this happens to you. Just, by someone who has been too bad to put his or her dog on a leash, which is mandatory there by the way.”
Everything is done to properly protect the sheep herd in De Strubben-Kniphorstbos, explains the former shepherd. “The herd consists of breeding groups with a total of three hundred sheep, each of which has been carefully selected. A wolf grid has been set up in the area where they are neatly placed every evening and thus the sheep are well protected. But when we put them in last night wanted to set the grid and count the sheep, so three were missing.”