This year, dogs are being trained in Drenthe to detect polecats. Polecats are difficult to find and are mainly active at night. The Marter Foundation finds the test with the dogs promising. The program makers of RTV Drenthe’s ROUG! will go on a ‘polecat hunt’ in February.
A black deer is spotted in the area of Oosterhesselen. That is special, because you actually only see these animals in brown. “According to the annual count, there are approximately 110,000 deer in the Netherlands, about two percent of which have black fur,” says Marcel Gademan of Vereniging Het Ree.
Near a roundabout in Zuidlaren, a beaver grabs the ankle of a passing MTB rider. The 70-year-old cyclist cannot avoid the animal and runs over the beaver with his rear wheel. According to beaver scout Cindy de Jonge from Assen, beavers are not so aggressive, but they do bite away in threatening situations.
The vipers will come back to life in March this year. After hibernation they wake up and warm up in the first spring sun. After ‘charging’, the males look for females to reproduce. See vipers on the Dwingelderveld here.
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