The Dutch farmers reaching for their guns after EU backed down on wolf crisis

Telegraph

22-02-2025

Rendered dormant for over a century, Dutch farmers are once again calling for the 'wolvenjager' – the wolf hunter – to be unleashed.
Wolves were driven out of the Netherlands in the late 19th century, but after the feared predators were deemed untouchable under a 'strict protection' order issued by the EU in 2015, they have returned.
Now, wolves are ravaging livestock across the country's farms every day, leaving meadows peppered with mutilated carcasses.
A sharp rise in attacks on livestock and pets – including on Ursula von der Leyen's own beloved pony – convinced the EU to downgrade the protection order in December, placing the onus on member states to devise their own responses to wolves from March onwards.
The decision has left rival groups jostling for the ear of Dutch politicians: farmers, who are in favour of culling, and animal rights groups, who fear an open season on the animals.
Officials have as of yet provided no clear direction on how to handle the nine packs of wolves roaming the Netherlands.
Eduard van Adrichem, a wizened hunter sporting a cowboy hat and an unkempt grey beard, sees culling the increasingly emboldened wolf as a solemn duty to his neighbours.
'It's not the wolf's fault, he is an opportunist. It's nature, I don't blame him for that, but I will shoot him for that,' the 67-year-old said, his gnarled hands gripping a rifle with familiarity.
'I would kill them all. It's my obligation to save Holland from a disaster.'
On the farms of Gelderland, Utrecht and Drenthe, WhatsApp groups deliver news of sightings and savage attacks.
'I will quit breeding sheep'
Boudewijn Kooijman, from Limburg, orchestrates the Green Wolf warning system, sending on a flurry of reports from farmers complete with gory photographic evidence.
'You never get used to it. I take it home. I can't sleep,' the 65-year-old says after arriving at the scene of a grisly overnight attack on a fellow farmer's flock in Emst.
Once the proud owner of 1,500 Maasduinenschaap (a breed of sheep), which his family has farmed since the 1800s, Mr Kooijman has seen his numbers dwindle to around 500.
'It is my life, but I can't do it anymore. For me it is clear that I will quit breeding sheep,' he said in front of a tractor loader bearing five caracasses, a lamb visible amidst the entrails hanging from a mother's torn belly.
The marauding wolf, Mr Kooijman explained, ravages sheep – ripping the throat and bowels – but rarely eating its prey, leaving behind a gruesome and often half-dead surplus.
Tanja Witman, with anguish sketched into her face, said there have been four attacks on her farm in two years, resulting in the deaths of more than 50 sheep.
'The fences don't work, the wolves jump over. We need to start shooting,' her husband Erik said. 'If it continues like this, it will not be possible to keep sheep in this area.'
Further north in Drenthe, Jos Ubels, a 38-year-old cattle farmer, dismissed the anti-wolf fences subsidised by the government as a waste of time and money.
'You do it because otherwise they say you are not trying but we know it does not work,' he said.
Such fences threaten to eradicate an age-old symbiotic relationship whereby farmers lend sheep to their fellow dairy farmers, rotating through fields for three days at a time to improve the quality of next season's grass.
'They are destroying the system, they don't understand,' Mr Ubels added.
He explained that the choice between leaving sheep vulnerable and taking on back-breaking labour to install and maintain fences, for which the government does not offer compensation, renders the tradition untenable.
Farmers have also warned the more fencing is laid down, the harder it is for wildlife such as deer and boar to migrate across the Netherlands.
Mr Ubels, no stranger to activism as vice president of the Farmers Defence Force, said he was amongst the first to sound the alarm over wolf attacks after 14 of his calves went missing.
'We found a carcass. It was shocking. There was only the spine and a severed head,' he said, adding that the authorities initially refused to send a team to collect DNA samples, claiming that a wolf would never attack cattle.
An organisation known as Bij12 must obtain DNA matching a wolf on the government's database for the farmer to be paid compensation – an amount which farmers feel does not go far enough.
Mr Ubels responded by vowing to deliver the mutilated remains of a heifer through the local authorities' window. After alerting local media, who then phoned the province to ask what was happening, investigators confirmed wolves were responsible.
The cattle farmer fears similarities in the response that wolves will never attack humans.
On Friday, two ponies were found dead, dismembered and uneaten in Hierden, Gelderland, posing further concern over wolves' broadening appetite.
'My children are scared,' Mr Ubels said, adding that, given the opportunity, as a licensed hunter he would not think twice before reaching for his gun.
Last summer, the province of Utrecht was rocked by two cases of children being bitten and knocked over by wolves, which prompted the local authorities to issue urgent advice for children to stay out of the forests.
'It is a question of time before a wolf attacks a child. Little Red Riding Hood will no longer be just a fairy tale,' warned Caroline van der Plas, leader of the farmers' party BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB).
It is a fear shared by Mr van Adrichem, who said wolves prey on easy targets.
'He will learn [that] after sheep that there are children and men, he will learn that,' the hunter warned.
Mr van Adrichem, his shoulders resting on the fur pelt of a black bear he shot with a Winchester lever-action rifle in Canada, does not see himself as above nature, but rather as part of it.
'I adore the wolf, I cannot hate him. I would not even hate him if he took one of my dogs. But I would kill him,' the hunter said. 'I worship the wolf, but Holland is too small for him.'
Fed-up farmers have held demonstrations in Emmen, Ede and Arnhem this month, the latter featuring mock wolf hangings.
'Dividing the population'
Vets have also vented their frustrations at being tasked with euthanising swathes of maimed animals.
'This is not why I became a vet. It is a tragedy. [The wolves] simply have to be shot,' Hans Veenstra, a vet from Wolvega, Friesland, told Dutch outlet AD.
The disparity in attitudes towards wolves has fuelled a widening rift between rural and urban areas.
Eric Kemperman, who represents the BBB in both the national parliament as a senator and the Gelderland local government, has long advocated for shooting wolves that attack livestock.
'People in the cities don't know how serious it is, it is dividing the population,' he told The Telegraph. 'It's getting out of hand, every day there are attacks'.
A hunter himself, Mr Kemperman said his party was 'waiting' for the right case in Gelderland to call on the mayor to enact local legislation which would permit the wolf to be shot.
'We will end up in court immediately, that is how it works here, but we want to challenge it,' he said.
In July 2023, the mayor for Westerwald authorised the killing of a wolf which had bitten a farmer near Wapse in Drenthe – an action which could otherwise result in a prison sentence or a fine.
Faunabescherming, an animal protection group, brought a lawsuit soon after the wolf was shot.
Earlier this month, a court sided with Faunabescherming over the provincial authorities of Gelderland, which had issued a permit allowing rangers to deter wolves with paintball guns.
Wolves neared extinction in the mid-20th century in Europe but recovered after being granted strict protection status by the Berne Convention in 1982 and the EU Habitats Directive in 1992.
Dr Joanna Swabe, senior director of public affairs at Humane Society International/Europe (HSI) fears the decision could mark a watershed moment for animals without natural predators.
'The EU decision-making on lowering legal protections for wolves sets a dangerous precedent for other European species, such as bears and lynx,' she said.
Léa Badoz, a wildlife programme officer at Eurogroup for Animals, believes the wolf has been unfairly tainted as a bogeyman.
'The wolf is unfortunately the latest political pawn, a victim of misinformation,' she said.
'[The downgrading] is based on misconceptions and threatens wolves, while failing to provide real support for farmers and local communities, many of whom are in favour of coexistence with the wolf.'
There have been no verified fatal attacks on humans in the last 40 years.
Jakob Leidekker, head of operations at De Hoge Veluwe National Park, believes the anger of animal rights groups is misguided, citing the loss of wildlife at the hands of the wolf.
'For the profit of one species, do we need to lose other species? Our main concern is maintaining biodiversity,' Mr Leidekker said, explaining that the introduction of wolves into the national park in 2021 decimated the grazing mouflon population.
The mouflon are an integral rung of the food chain, keeping the spread of Scots Pine at bay and propping up the poor-quality soil, without which Mr Leidekker predicts all his heathlands would disappear within 20 years.
Mr Leidekker added that wolves were becoming braver with every human interaction. Of the two children attacked last year, he noted: 'This is just the beginning.'