Last week, a resident of Hijken reported a wolf behind her backyard. That wolf didn’t react when she threw two shovels at the wolf. Crasborn: “That is very tame behavior. But the animals have long since become accustomed to us. There is not a part where we do not go. The vast Veluwe is a spider web of hiking trails where countless people come every day. In Alaska you can be weeks without a “You can see a wolf and if you see them, then from a great distance. Here and in Germany, the wolf is not hunted, so the wolf does not have much to fear from us. The wolf has no direct negative association with us.”
He draws the comparison with the fallow deer in the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen. “2,000 fallow deer are shot and there are more than a million visitors to the area. You can almost pet the fallow deer there. And yet they are wild animals. Animals adapt. We also know that behavior from foxes that people at a distance from approach five meters because they are being fed.”
Doesn’t the wolf already associate humans with food? “We see that in ‘charnel places’. These are places where, for example, game that has been killed by a car is laid down. We do this because a range of animals benefit from such a carcass, such as the eagle, ravens, foxes, beetles and other insects. But we’ve seen on cameras that wolves use those charnel sites. There were fields where shots were fired and where the wolf went to the charnel site after that shot. The wolf associates the car lights, the talk of trap handlers and the car radio with a fresh carcass. It is not a scavenger, but if the wolf is hungry it will take advantage of it.”
“We have to be critical about whether it is wise to keep these carcasses. In fact, you are feeding them indirectly. This can lead to a growth in the wolf population. I tend to say that we should be sparing with this method. But others have to think about this too,” says Crasborn.
He notes that pack size says little about the amount of animals caught by wolves. “Two wolves that catch a red deer eat a small part of it, but a larger pack eats the whole animal. In areas where there are large packs, we already see that, for example, only the head and spine remain as remains.”
What to do? “I don’t have the wisdom either. You see that wolf-resistant grids are being installed and that wolves sometimes get through. We are conducting research that shows that herd protection dogs can do something, but that only applies to a few wolves. Three herd protection dogs don’t stand a chance against a pack of ten.”
Sheep farmers say the wolf is killing the entire sector. “It is very sad, but perhaps it is realistic to conclude that it is not economically viable to keep sheep on a large scale. Because if you weigh the costs against the benefits, you may wonder whether it is possible “It’s a pity, because I have sheep myself. I enjoy cattle in the pasture. But the wolf is here.”
Protection of animals remains necessary, even if wolves would be shot. “I think that shooting has little effect on the number of animals a wolf catches. Because when wolves enter an enclosed area where sheep roam, they remain in mode chase and kill. That is the phenomenon of ‘surplus killing’. Normally, a wolf chases a wild animal and kills an animal, after which the wolf discharges. Because in a pasture the sheep can’t get away, wolves stay in that mode,” says Crasborn.
Is a zero position the solution? “A wolf does not adhere to this. It does not read the signs. More research is needed. Ad hoc intervention now is not wise. But we can make plans for wolf management. That is not only shooting, but also includes protective measures and area determination.
The answer to what Drenthe can do is not very easy. “Stay in touch with BIJ12 about proper protective measures. And intensify monitoring. So that you can build up a database to do analyses. That is already happening, but there is still room for improvement. Analyze the turds, see where the wolf came from that was hit, and so on .”