On European Plain entire native wildlife down to pigeons and rats had been killed and/or consumed at some point because of wars and famines. Entire current wildlife has been reintroduced.
Ah yes the nice EU experiment where it uses the Netherlands for as their experimentation grounds. The goal of having more wild life is lofty, but it makes no sense in the netherlands . For the people who don't know, there weren't wild wolves up to 2015.
There now are many and they've attacked people, horses and wiped out complete herds of sheep. The amount of sheep they are killing is increasing exponentially. (not using exponentially lightly here.)
Proponents during the 2015-2020 era said that it would never come to this situation, alas.
Rhetoric questions by proponents as seen on national news website[1]:
> We hebben ook weleens last van de mens, die schieten we toch ook niet af?
> -- Aaldrik Pot
Translated:
"We also have issues with people every now and then, were not shooting them are we?"
The wolves seemingly made it back into the Netherlands on their own:
In a paper published in 2016, “The first proof of the recent presence of Wolves in the Netherlands,” authors wrote:
“In light of the expansion of wolves from the Polish border to the northwest of Germany and the sightings in Denmark, the appearance of the wolf in the Netherlands was no surprise to most experts. In March 2015, this expectation was fulfilled when, after generations without resident wolves, a single wolf wandered through the Dutch provinces of Drenthe and Groningen in broad daylight. From 7 to 10 March 2015, the Netherlands witnessed the comeback of an iconic species.”
I have zero insight into why Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in the Netherlands concluded in a study that "the Netherlands are legally required to contribute between 23 and 56 wolf packs" (Lost in translation? - perhaps "can support and shouldn't cull below these numbers" ?)
Dutch version of the WUR page says basically the same thing: "Uit het onderzoeksrapport blijkt dat Nederland juridisch gezien een bijdrage aan de wolvenpopulatie moet leveren van 23 tot 56 roedels. " -> the study concludes that the Netherlands has to contribute to the wolf population from 23 to 56 wolf packs.
It seems that this is part of a european "habitats directive" for managing biodiversity within Europe. This directive (according to the above paper) determined there need to be around 500 wolf packs across Europe to keep wolves at a stable level without too much inbreeding. The Netherlands was found to be able to "contribute" 23 to 56 wolf packs in this sense.
Ah, cheers for that - I'm on the other side of the planet and was happy to do a bit of light digging on the situation but limited by not having much grasp of the written language.
Maybe they're saying that there are better ways to coexist with animals that were here before us, before we razed their forests, than, you know, genocide
Hmm. Well, not sure about this. If you put yourself in the shoes of the wolf, sheep are abundant, free, delicious everything- their "economy" is exclusively food-bound. Not sure what kind of fences would keep them out, and how expensive would they be- and how long they would last.
Population control, preventing overgrazing, stuff like that. However, the Netherlands (unlike most countries) is basically a big farm with practically no wild nature, so humans manage that stuff already. Maybe I'm exaggerating a tad, but I don't get what benefit wolves have in the Netherlands specifically.
It's not just the Netherlands, this is happening in Italy as well. Part of it is just the natural consequence of people having abandoned the countryside and mountains for the cities. But we certainly forgot what it means to not be the only apex predator around- we used to be able to roam around without a fear in the world like we owned the fucking place (we did). It's nice to have a wild ecosystem around but we probably forgot what it means to have around beings that are... unaligned with us.
yes for the love of god would someone please make sure the country remains a safe, boring holiday park / dairy farm. will someone think of all that poor livestock / the children!!1
Well I guess we differ there then, I do like not having to carry a rifle or sprays when i walk outside (we are not allowed). I also like livestock and kids not having to fear a predator that we drove to the outskirts.
I do wonder where you live in the Netherlands and if you just find it convenient to talk about the rural parts without having to face the consequences.
now that they're back, eg. wild boar are seen congegating in groups of 50-60 animals, for herd safety. something they never did before.
Edit: this linked, translated article has more info https://nos-nl.translate.goog/artikel/2635314-wolf-maakt-zwi...
Rhetoric questions by proponents as seen on national news website[1]:
> We hebben ook weleens last van de mens, die schieten we toch ook niet af?
> -- Aaldrik Pot
Translated:
"We also have issues with people every now and then, were not shooting them are we?"
[1]: https://nos.nl/artikel/2245512-waarom-willen-we-eigenlijk-wi...
Wolf numbers are now reportedly at 131 split across roughly 14 packs (April 2026): https://nltimes.nl/2026/04/11/dutch-wolf-population-growing-...
I have zero insight into why Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in the Netherlands concluded in a study that "the Netherlands are legally required to contribute between 23 and 56 wolf packs" (Lost in translation? - perhaps "can support and shouldn't cull below these numbers" ?)
~ https://www.wur.nl/en/news/ecological-and-legal-framework-wo...
Reading further:
https://edepot.wur.nl/690748
It seems that this is part of a european "habitats directive" for managing biodiversity within Europe. This directive (according to the above paper) determined there need to be around 500 wolf packs across Europe to keep wolves at a stable level without too much inbreeding. The Netherlands was found to be able to "contribute" 23 to 56 wolf packs in this sense.
If those were private sheep, shouldn't they be better guarded?
Here we're still surrounded by wild ecosystems and unaligned others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA3SuHtCWo0
I do wonder where you live in the Netherlands and if you just find it convenient to talk about the rural parts without having to face the consequences.
Disneyland with the Death Penalty" is a 4,500-word article about Singapore written by William Gibson. It wad his first major piece of non-fiction.