Dawn had just broken and the two young children were still wearing their orange onesie pyjamas when their mother beckoned them into the field beside their house. Ordinarily, five-year-old Boaz van Roekel and his sister Febe, four, would have been greeted with a friendly lick from their older sibling’s pet pony, Blackie.
That morning, however, these innocents were horrifically awoken to the savagery now lurking in rural Holland. Like thousands more animals – sheep, cattle, horses, and even pet dogs and rabbits – Blackie had fallen prey to a wolf: one of a rapidly increasing number to have colonised this small, overcrowded country, spreading fear and mayhem.
The blame for this is laid firmly at the door of Brussels, for it is the EU’s stringent habitat directives that make wolves virtually untouchable from culling, swelling their continental population to over 20,000.
Hunting for less evasive quarry than the deer and wild boar in the nearby forest, the wolf had crept into the paddock, ripped into the pony’s sleek, black coat with incisors as forceful as a flailing jackhammer, then feasted on her flank.
The Van Roekel family had been alerted to its presence by the local chat group in Wekerom, one of many villages in the Veluwe, a ridge of forest and heathland in north-western Holland.
PIctured: The wolf that killed Blackie the pony which led to Boaz and Febe having to flee to the field beside their house
When Blackie’s owner, 14-year-old Lotte, went to check on her, she found her remains on the bloodstained grass. Meanwhile, a neighbour videoed the sated wolf still wandering around nonchalantly in a nearby yard.
Though Lotte was distraught, her mother, Gerrita, decided her youngest two children should also see the harrowing scene. She later posted a photograph of Boaz comforting his little sister as they gazed at the pony on Facebook.
In recent days, the poignant image, shot from behind, has gone viral. And with Dutch people and politicians bitterly divided over the welcomeness of the newly arrived predators – increasingly found on the edges of towns and cities, not just rural areas – the response is a barometer of public opinion.
While some criticise Gerrita and her husband Jos, 35, a cladding company boss, for exposing such young children to distress, far more are angry that domestic animals, and indeed humans, are not being protected.
IT WAS precisely to provoke such a reaction that the couple chose to show the photo. ‘I want people to see how the world has turned upside down,’ Gerrita told me last week. ‘The wolf is allowed to roam free, and we are the victims.
‘The only good thing is that Boaz and Febe weren’t attacked, because at 8am [the time the wolf is thought to have struck] they are usually playing in that field. Now they are afraid to go to school in case a wolf comes and gets them.’
Her husband nodded gravely. A country barely twice the size of Wales with 18 million people and few wilderness areas is no place for wolves, he said. ‘Something has to be done.’ It was a cry I heard time and again while visiting rural communities haunted by eerie howls and the grim sight of mutilated sheep lying in the fields.
Surely it ought to be heeded by British rewilding idealogues on a messianic mission to reintroduce wolves to our islands, saying they will naturally cull the numbers of wild deer – such as those pictured besieging a Scottish Highland village last week – and enhance biodiversity.
Conservationist Derek Gow is one such believer and told The Mail on Sunday that the Highlands would benefit from the release of up to 94 wolf packs, eight times more than have settled in the Netherlands. ‘The most dangerous animal is not the wolf. It’s the one on the sofa licking your toes,’ he said, suggesting dogs are more of a threat. ‘Reintroducing wolves would add to the spectacle and history of the nation.’
Seeking food, wolves increasingly stalk domestic animals. Barely a day goes by without a report of some grim new drama, and there are fears a child could be killed
Dutch people suffering the realities of living cheek-by-jowl with carnivores that can devour 10lb of meat a day don’t appear to share his enthusiasm. I was repeatedly told Britain would be ‘crazy’ to think of bringing back wolves. As with the UK, they once roamed the Netherlands but were eradicated in the mid-19th Century. Amid lurid stories of wolves snatching children, and with sheep herds being decimated, hunters were paid to kill them.
In Western Europe, wolves survived only in Spain and Italy. During communist times, the rest were confined to Eastern Bloc countries. Although the Iron Curtain was erected to stop people defecting to the West, its barbed-wire fences and booby traps also made it impenetrable for wolves. When it was torn down in 1989, they began wandering from Poland and the former Czechoslovakia into Germany.
Since then, the country has had periodic wolf alarms, with the most notable coming in 2022, when European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s pony Dolly was killed. She promptly issued an order for the culprit to be shot – although hunters are yet to track it down. The Commission recommended downgrading the wolf’s protected status to allow hunting in exceptional circumstances, and conservationists accused von der Leyen of waging a personal vendetta.
The move is expected to be ratified by the Bern Convention, to which the UK is a signatory, in December. And about time too, many Dutch folk say. When the first lone grey wolf slipped over the German border in 2015, the return of these beasts seemed rather romantic. Not any more.
In Western Europe, wolves survived only in Spain and Italy. During communist times, the rest were confined to Eastern Bloc countries
Last week, Holland’s wolf monitoring authority revealed 55 cubs had been born this year, and there could now be as many as 140 in 11 packs. In a country where almost every inch is manicured and cultivated, this makes for a different kind of migration crisis.
The Veluwe, Holland’s only sizeable national park, is much smaller than the New Forest – and we can but imagine the carnage that would ensue were a pack of wolves to be unleashed in Hampshire.
Seeking food, they increasingly stalk domestic animals. Barely a day goes by without a report of some grim new drama, and there are fears a child could be killed. During the summer, a five-year-old girl had a terrifying encounter with a wolf in the Utrecht High Ridge conservation area during a kindergarten outing.
As often happens in a country where the pro- and anti-wolf lobbies are equally righteous, the details are hotly debated. What is beyond dispute, however – confirmed by DNA from her T-shirt and her carer’s eye-witness account – is that the wolf injured her as she buried apples in long grass for a treasure hunt. Pictures of her abdomen show puncture wounds, cuts and bruises.
Some professed experts say they are bite marks; others insist they are the wrong configuration for a wolf’s teeth and were more likely caused when she fell. There is also disagreement over whether the clash was deliberate or accidental.
If we believe the carer, who was standing beside the girl, she was ‘stalked and attacked’ in a flash before, perhaps alarmed by her screams, the wolf disappeared into the undergrowth. It is a version supported by Erwin van Maanen, co-editor of The Wolf: Culture, Nature, Heritage, who investigated the case and believes this wolf bit into the girl to see whether she was suitable prey.
Last week, Holland’s wolf monitoring authority revealed 55 cubs had been born this year, and there could now be as many as 140 in 11 packs
However, other experts suggest it harmed her accidentally because she disturbed him. Given that Holland’s authorities are hamstrung by the Brussels ideology that often appears to prioritise the preservation of Europe’s wolf population over human safety, these rights and wrongs are crucially important.
For unless a wolf can be proven beyond any doubt to pose a danger to people or livestock, EU rules prohibit even the slightest interference with them.
When local politicians challenge the diktat laid down by these remote bureaucrats, they are invariably dragged through the courts by animal rights warriors.
While the province of Utrecht is powerless to act against the animal that apparently wounded the girl as it may not have behaved ‘abnormally’, it has taken issue with another lone wolf in the area.
In a wrangle that could become a test case, the province is seeking legal permission to nullify the threat from this ‘problem wolf’, officially identified as GW3237m (a code signifying its DNA and that it is a male grey) but popularly known as Bram, the name of the first dog he chased in a scare videoed by its owner.
Though wolves typically shy away from humans, this one has lost its inhibitions and had what are euphemistically described as 31 documented ‘interactions’ with people and dogs in the past 18 months – one of which saw him trample a little girl to the ground.
Thankfully she was not seriously hurt, but Mirjam Sterk, the minister responsible for wolf protection in Utrecht, contends that Bram’s unnatural behaviour should allow him to be ‘negatively conditioned’ and monitored.
If the permit is granted, he would be trapped, anaesthetised and fitted with a GPS tracking device. Should that fail, paintball pellets would be fired at him as a warning to keep away from people.
Geertje de Mos, whose dog Bruno was attacked by a wolf near Harderwijk, and later died
Since Bram’s stalking ground had to be closed to hikers, bikers and nature lovers this summer, some think Ms Sterk’s solution is generous. I spoke to locals who would like him to be shot.
Last month, however, when Dutch animal rights activists went to court to demand the permit be withheld, at least temporarily, a judge sided with them. With further appeals likely, Ms Sterk fears the case could drag on for years, during which GW3237m might injure, or even kill, a child.
‘You never know,’ she said. ‘If you had asked me in April if I thought a girl in my province could be overrun by a wolf, I would have laughed, because as far as we know this has never happened before in Europe, and perhaps even the world. I was recently in Finland [which is eight times the size of Holland and has 300 wolves] and they said they’d never had an incident like this, so I think something is going on.
‘Finland has about 5.5 million people. I have 1.3 million in just this small province, so encounters between wolves and people are far more common.’
The question is, what does that do to wolves’ behaviour?
‘It’s like bears in America. When they have more contact with people, they become more aggressive. It’s my responsibility to protect the wolves, but also the people, but I’m blocked by those who claim to have the animals’ interests at heart. If these incidents keep on going something terrible could happen.’
Quite so, but the peril is by no means confined to Utrecht.
g Bruno (owner Geertje de Mos,)who was attacked by a wolf near Harderwijk
In the neighbouring province of Gelderland, dental hygienist Geertje de Mos, 48, took me to a wood two minutes’ drive from the town of Harderwijk where, in August, she went on her daily walk with her Jack Russell-dachshund cross Bruno.
Though she was aware of the threat in nearby areas, she thought it a wolf-free zone. Yet Ms de Mos had gone barely 500 yards along the busy path when she heard Bruno let out a blood-curdling scream. She turned to see her 12-year-old terrier locked in the jaws of a wolf, who carried him into the trees.
After several minutes, the tenacious little dog freed himself and scampered back to her. However, his pancreas had been crushed and he died three days later.
‘I’m convinced this wolf was stalking us all the time,’ she told me. ‘It could be a few feet away, watching us now. They say Bram is the only mean wolf, but that’s rubbish. They are all the same.’
Her sentiment is shared by many farmers, who have seen the number of sheep savaged by wolves skyrocket from just 20 in 2017 to 1,200 last year.
Paul Aalbers, 42, who farms 800 sheep near Zwolle, tells me he has invested £70,000 into Spanish mastiff guard dogs and electrified fencing, which wolves are already learning to leap over. He also employs extra staff, all of which has tripled his overheads, threatening him with bankruptcy.
They are hard truths rewilding crusaders will not want to hear, yet they need to do so. For while wolves may be wonderful creatures in their rightful place, when they live among us they become nightmarish neighbours – as the Dutch are learning to their cost.
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