good for biodiversity or not?

Help lower the legal status of the wolf. This call is contained in the petition that the two BBB deputies Harold Zoet (Gelderland) and Egbert van Dijk (Drenthe) presented on Tuesday to the standing parliamentary committee for Agriculture., Nature and Food Quality. The chairman of this committee is PVV MP Dion Graus, who fiercely defended the wolf during a parliamentary debate in January. ‘Man kills millions of animals‘he said then. ‘I never hear anyone talk about that. Never.‘

Next Thursday, the House committee will hold a technical briefing on the wolf, attended by interest groups and scientists. From those already submitted position papers shows how much the views on the wolf contrast.

Good or not good for biodiversity?

Arie Trouwborst, professor of nature conservation law in Tilburg, emphasizes, for example, that the Netherlands is obliged to strive for a favorable conservation status for the wolf on the basis of the European Habitats Directive. In December 2022, he writes, the European Union signed the Global Biodiversity Framework.

Referring to the Veluwe, where seven of the nine Dutch wolf packs occur, Trouwborst finds it surprising that ‘the wolf has still not been added to the list of species for which the Veluwe has been designated as a Natura 2000 area’. He himself has the impression that the Netherlands is not complying with a European legal obligation.

All mouflons dead

How different is the view of the board of the Hoge Veluwe National Park. This government wants to get rid of the wolves, because they have killed all the freely roaming mouflons (small wild sheep) (at least 337). This means that the wolf, which derives its protected status from biodiversity treaties, harms biodiversity. Because the mouflons, as grazers, ensured that the dry heath, the heather-bare grasslands and the drifting sands in the national park remained open, and are therefore biodiverse. ‘The provincial wolf plan and national policy lack a link with the Natura 2000 goals‘, the board writes. ‘This could have dramatic consequences for the flora and fauna in the Park, but also in a legal sense, if achieving the Natura 2000 goals proves impossible.’

More or less protection?

In mid-June, the European Council of Environment Ministers will vote on a lower protection status for the wolf, so that there may be more room for management of wolf populations. Next Wednesday, the provincial council of Gelderland will vote on a motion in which parties such as VVD, BBB and PVV call on the provincial government to lobby in The Hague and Brussels ‘to reduce the protected status, because management measures are now necessary‘.

Pieter van Geel, former Member of Parliament on behalf of the CDA, views this differently as chairman of the CDA Wolf National Consultation. ‘My view is: the better the wolf is protected, the more it is possible to protect sheep, for example, and vice versa.’ Because especially when the wolf population in the Netherlands is in good condition, there is legal scope for more intensive management of the predator.

No compensation

In his opinion, livestock farmers in areas where wolves live, such as Friesland, Drenthe and North Brabant, should not receive compensation if they do not have their wolf-resistant fencing in order. The Animal Protection Society also thinks so: ‘This is a bonus on negligence and a negative incentive.’ In addition, it is thought that good fencing negatively conditions wolves and therefore naturally leads to fewer attacks on livestock. But for the time being this is not the case, according to the interest group. ‘Of almost 1,000 damage cases throughout the Netherlands, a grid according to the advisory standard was present in 3 percent of the cases, but in only 0.6 percent of all cases it showed no defects.’

The latter is indeed stated in a report Bij12 for the period from August 1 to October 20, 2023. According to other figures from the same provincial executive organization, the number of animal victims of wolves for which compensation has been paid is increasing: from 149 in 2021 to 1043 in 2022 and 1121 in 2023. The counter this year stands at: 495. In Drenthe, the most damage has been compensated in 2022 with more than 105,000 euros. This is followed by North Brabant (49,000), Friesland (34,000) and Gelderland (19,000).

Wolves like it here

Professor Arie Trouwborst writes that the wolves in the Netherlands ‘in an unequivocal manner‘ show ‘that, despite the high human population density and associated infrastructure, they see a future in the Netherlands‘. In his opinion, people can still learn something from the animal’s willingness to adapt. However, the provincial government of Drenthe does not agree with this. A letter accompanying the petition states: ‘The combination of few natural prey animals and many farm animals ensures that the diet of wolves in Drenthe consists of a substantial part of farm animals. We argue that Drenthe has few contiguous nature reserves and should therefore not be classified as the natural habitat of the wolf.’