Trekers honk. Megaphones strengthen angry voices on a farmer’s cart. About two hundred farmers and citizens defy the cold in front of the provincial government office in Arnhem on Wednesday and show that they are ‘ready’ with the wolf. They crave measures. “Do we have to wait for the wolf to eat a child?” Ask Farmer Jaap van de Heg from Barneveld. His activists are unanimous in their horror of “self -proclaimed wolf experts” who “have never seen an open sheep” and their reluctance against city dwellers that believe that the wolves should be given space and that Plattelanders have to adapt.
“The Netherlands is too small for this predator,” says the Drenthe farmer Jos Ubels, board member of action group Farmers Defense Force, whose animals have also been attacked by wolves up to four times. In his opinion, politics does not do enough. “The wolf is the price we have to pay for the green image of politicians,” he shouts. “Delete the wolf from the list of protected animals.”
De Wolf is a very intelligent animal, but that is precisely why it is dangerous.
Others also tell their story. Eight years ago the “dream” of Jolanda van de Pol came from the hamlet of Huinen of a “wonderful outdoor life with our dogs and sheep.” The dream “is gradually turning into a nightmare,” she says. “The ewes and lambs are safe inside, but it blends far and can attract wolves. Are we still safe on our own yard? ” She is also worried about her dogs. “We no longer dare to walk in the woods after several confrontations between dogs and wolves. It feels like we have lost our freedom and sense of security. “
The story of Jolanda van de Pol is one of the many on the market in Arnhem, for a foggy Eusebius church. Stories about farmers who can no longer ride their partners on their bikes to their lands. Children who are taken to school by their parents by car, for fear of confrontations with a pack of wolves. “People are scared,” says BBB senator Eric Kemperman, member of the Provincial States in Gelderland, and initiator of an emergency debate in Arnhem. “Recently a man stood in my village with his guidance dog opposite a wolf.” The fear is deep, also with Jolanda van de Pol. “I hold my heart for the coming years, in which the number of wolves will increase enormously and they become increasingly brutal. De Wolf is a very intelligent animal, but that is precisely why it is dangerous. “
Bengal tiger
Gelderland has eight of the eleven well -known packs of wolves in the Netherlands, and, according to some, may or be delighted in the return of a previously disappeared animal, but also experiences the shadow sides of it. These disadvantages gradually get the most attention in Gelderland. In the emergency debate, BBB, together with SGP, submits a motion under the title ‘The size is full, away with the wolf’ that is actually adopted by a large majority in the States.
BBB initiator Kemperman: “Too often the narrative of nature conservation is followed. Suppose a Bengal tiger escapes from a animal park at the moment and walks through the center of a city. What are we going to do then? Take the Nature Conservation Handbook to see what is not possible because it is a heavily protected species? Or intervene? Wolves are no longer shy. They walk across streets and squares, approach people, jump over fences, threatened pets, and grab cattle. ”
We will manage the wolf as soon as the regulations have been adjusted
In the case of incidents, mayors often do not die because nature conservation rules prohibit this, Kemperman complains. The question is whether they are doing that wrong. It appears, as it appears in the emergency debate, really the European and national politics that determine whether a wolf can be driven away or can even be shot. “We are going to manage the wolf,” says BBB deputy Harold Zoet several times. To also have to add several times: “Once the regulations have been adjusted.”
‘Problem wolves’
The status of the wolf will be definitively reduced within a few months in the European Union from ‘strictly protected’ to ‘protected’, which will make more repression possible. And State Secretary Jean Rummenie (Agriculture and Nature, BBB) seems to be eager to be able to eliminate ‘problem wolves’ if they permanently threaten human and cattle. Deputy Sweet promises to intervene hard as soon as that will become legally possible. “Our management plan is ready.”
The motion calls on researching the effectiveness of “wolf -resistant graters”, because according to many it is not great; Wolves jump over it – and those rasters also hinder ‘other fauna’. An “expert team” must also be permanently deployable to assist mayors in the event of a calamity. Finally, work must be done on a “appropriate workable solution” for “nuisance -causing wolves” as soon as the “legal frameworks change.” But all that does BBB-deputy sweet actually, so that little changes. “You have made many people happy with a dead sparrow,” PvdA party leader Jan Daenen holds up the other parties. The ChristenUnie also did not vote for the motion. “The deputy does not need any encouragement for this policy. The debate and this motion only reinforce the unrest in society. ”
Suspicion of poaching
Anyway; Opposite all the anti -wolven violence, the enthusiasm about the return of the Wolf Iel contrasts. A motion will also be submitted on Wednesday that calls to strengthen enforcement on poaching, because research by de Volkskrant It has been found that a quarter of the registered wolves in the Netherlands are more or less lost, and therefore may have been fired illegally. The motion did not make it. And deputy sweet doubts whether the wolves have actually been secretly shot.
The organization that implements nature policy on behalf of the twelve provinces, BIJ12, would have denied that. Is that correct? “We do not keep track of where the wolves that were once observed in the Netherlands are now,” a spokesperson responds by e -mail. “We do not deny that wolves have disappeared; We simply have no information about this, and poaching cannot exclude. ”
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