A visit to the Beekse Bergen in Hilvarenbeek started exciting for Lieke van de Griendt from Lieshout on Thursday before she even arrived at the zoo. Just before the gates of the park, she spotted a wolf that walked a bit next to her car. “I wondered for a moment if it had escaped from the park, but then I realized that they don’t have wolves there at all,” she says.
Lieke can regularly be found in the Beekse Bergen for her work and so on Thursday. “As I was about to enter the park, I saw a panicked dog criss-crossing from one side of the road to the other. Then I looked again and thought: that’s not a dog.”
“I explained that it might not be convenient to cycle close by.”
She turned around and decided to make a movie of the wolf. When cyclists arrived on the other side of the road, she immediately warned them. “I explained that it might not be convenient to cycle close by. Then they were shocked and got off.”
Lieke was happy that she was safe in her car. “I quickly closed my window again. But I knew that the wolf is more afraid of us than we are of him. He didn’t look at me with bloodthirsty eyes,” she laughs.
The wolf shot through the rushing traffic and, according to Lieke, looked stressed. “He tried to enter a garden of a house, but there was a very high fence in front of it. In the end he was shot into the verge,” says Lieke.
“What can’t get out of the safari park, can’t get in.”
After her adventure, she called the wolf hotline. There they could explain to her that the animal probably comes from Belgium and that it is now the mating season. Wolf expert Glenn Lelieveld agrees, who also does not have to doubt. “This is a wolf,” he says. “You can recognize the wolf by its build, color and hair, among other things. And the ears are not pointed.”
According to him, De Beekse Bergen need not worry. “What can’t get out of the safari park, can’t get in either. And in principle, wolves are afraid of people, so he does not seek them out.” Nevertheless, Lieke has tipped the park that they should keep an eye on things. “I think they have a petting zoo at the holiday park and that doesn’t seem very practical to me.”