An Exmoor pony owned by Drenthe wolf consultant Jaap Mekel was probably grabbed by a wolf. The dead animal was found yesterday afternoon by a passerby on a plot on the Studentenkampweg in Wapserveen. Mekel grazes that land for Natuurmonumenten. The 40-hectare plot is home to a total of two Scottish Highlanders, three Galloways and ten Exmoor ponies.
An animal keeper is obliged by law to protect his animals, but the fence here consisted of two electric wires, right in the middle of the habitat of the pack in the Drents-Friese Wold. Recent figures from BIJ12 show that the wolf attacked large farm animals in Drenthe four times from November 1, 2022 to February 15, 2023. In the period from August 1, 2022 to October 31, 2022, the wolf made an equal number of attacks on large farm animals.
Mekel thought it wouldn’t go that fast with a wolf attack. “In Germany, only half a percent of the wolf’s food consists of ponies. The animals were also kept in herds on the site. In foreign nature reserves, the combination of ponies and cattle is not often attacked.”
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