Drenthe farmers want to get rid of predator: ‘I let them shoot the wolf’

Farmers in Drenthe had announced the meeting as a “safari in which people can see with their own eyes the consequences of the wolf in the Netherlands”. That was not that bad. “We have used the word safari to draw attention to what is happening here,” says chairman Dirk Bruins of farmers’ organization LTO Noord. “Many people find the possibility of encountering a wolf exciting or beautiful. I understand that. We are not against the wolf. But there is often one-sided reporting about it.”

In a small room of a veterinary practice in Sleen, Drenthe, farmers tell how much the arrival of the wolf has disrupted their lives – and that is impressive enough without the direct sight of bloodied sheep or calves. “Very confrontational”, concludes Mayor Renze Bergsma (CDA) of Coevorden, which Sleen falls under, after hearing some stories.

The veterinary practice borders dairy farmer Albert Eising’s land, where a calf was killed and several others injured last month, and a calf had to be euthanized after the animal panicked into a manure pit. Eising: “When I realized it had been the wolf, a feeling of anger overcame me. If a cow is brought to the slaughterhouse slightly lame, the owner will be fined. But should we be okay with this? I let them shoot the wolf.”

‘Worse than ritual slaughter’

Dairy farmer Wilco Hilhorst from the neighboring village of Noord-Sleen can also have a say in this. He doesn’t keep it dry when he tells how one of his calves might have walked up to the wolf out of curiosity, only to end up dead in a ditch, eaten and the tail torn off. “I’m going full.”

Sheep farmers Jacqueline and Albert Koppelaar from Eemster recently got the fright of their lives when a wolf outwitted some lambs and left a few others injured. They are also angry. Jacqueline Koppelaar: “Political parties are angry about ritual slaughter. But what the wolf does is a thousand times worse.”

The farmers have asked sheep doctor Reinard Everts to provide an explanation. He is happy to do so, especially now that Minister Christianne van der Wal (Nature, VVD) has this week called for a ‘broad social dialogue’ about the native European protected predator. “I will try not to polarize,” says Everts. He does want to tell “the facts”. He points out that the damage is greater than is apparent from the number of animals killed. Injured sheep also continue to be inconvenienced by such an attack, he says. Thus, the number of lambs would decrease.

What also annoys the sheep doctor is the ease with which citizens claim that farmers should protect their livestock better, for example by installing grids. Everts unrolls a 1.20 meter high grid outside and says that it is often impracticable to install these over large areas, and that they cannot always stop the wolf – if only because grass grows against the grid and the current therefore disappears. In addition, sheep become entangled in the grids, and other species worthy of protection are also affected, such as chicks of meadow birds, deer and hares.

The only alternative would be to keep all animals indoors. LTO Noord believes that there is ‘insufficient debate’ about the usefulness and necessity of wolf repellent measures. For example, it is said that wolves target sheep and cattle because there is not enough game in the nature reserves. LTO chairman Bruins: “Should we suddenly place a lot of wild boars on the Dwingelderveld as food for the wolves?”

What further disturbs the farmers is that citizens think that a few sheep more or less does not matter, after all, after all, the animals eventually go to slaughter? Dairy farmer Bruins: “We do our very best to give our animals a good life and not let them end like this.”

Also read the story about poldering with the wolf

Cardiac arrhythmias

What can be said against all this? We ask Michiel de Wit, a participant in the National Wolf Consultation on behalf of the Animal Protection Society. It states that Dierenbescherming is “obviously for optimal protection of all animals kept commercially and as hobby, as well as for those of the wolf”. For that reason, he argues for “generous subsidies and other support in taking optimal protective measures for all kept animals, and equally generous compensation if damage occurs despite protective measures taken.”

De Wit has not yet been to Drenthe and therefore “cannot judge” whether there are cases in which these protective measures do not work, and recalls that taking measures against predators by animals kept outside is also a “legal obligation”. Shooting the wolf is out of the question for now. If this can ever be the case, then “it will first have to be jointly determined when exactly there is a so-called ‘problem wolf’.” Minister Van der Wal’s social dialogue is ‘extremely suitable’ for this.

Sheep farmer Jacqueline Koppelaar wants to say one more thing at the end of the meeting. “I don’t want to be pathetic. But after the attack on our sheep on Wednesday, my husband Albert was in hospital on Friday with cardiac arrhythmias. We are not wimps. But the impact of a wolf attack is enormous. Also on people.”