Have you seen a wolf? You can, but probably not. Especially when the wolf is in the news, such as last Friday when a dead wolf was found in Vught, the false reports of wolves in that region increase. It almost always involves dogs.
Wolf connoisseur Johan Mees is an advisor for the province on matters such as fauna and nature conservation. An important task, because the province is the client for monitoring the distribution of wolves in Brabant. The province is therefore also the client for the reporting center for wolves.
People can report it via that reporting center if they think they have seen a wolf, for example on the website Wolveninnederland.nl. And a lot of people do that.
“Wandering wolves criss-cross through Brabant.”
That’s good, of course, because that’s what the hotline was set up for. But it has been known for some time that many of those reports turn out not to be wolves, but dogs that look like wolves. Mees says that the number of reports mainly increases if a real wolf has been seen somewhere.
“We can clearly see that: if a wolf is spotted somewhere, the number of reports increases. Then people send a picture of a wolf, but that’s a dog. Usually those dogs escaped. Sometimes it is a dog that is walked off leash and they still have the collar on.”
Wolves in Brabant mostly come from Germany and Belgium. In principle, it could also be a young wolf from the Veluwe, where dozens of wolves now live.
“It is difficult for a layman to tell the difference between a wolf and a dog.”
“Wandering wolves criss-cross Brabant, looking for an area they are happy with. Brabant does not have its own packs of wolves.”
Moreover: it is also not easy to tell the difference between a dog and a wolf. “It really is something you need to know about. For a layman, the difference between a wolf and a dog is difficult to see. It is sometimes difficult even for experts.
“Sometimes we receive a video or a photo and then we don’t see it ourselves, for example because the photo was taken from far away or the animal is between the trees. It’s just really hard. Usually they are lookalikes, such as wolfdogs. So no wolves,” concludes Mees.
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