I have been away for the last few weeks. After a week in the UK, we headed to holland, and while the first part of our trip was largely for the children, we then headed into Eastern Holland for a wilder part.
Here, the wolf returned after a 150 year absence.
We spent our time in the region around the Veluwe national park. This is one of the few wild areas of the Netherlands, and of the known 9 packs of wolves, 7 are found within the Veluwe.
While there, I visited a free hide a number of times, and although I did not see the wolves, it was still a fantastic place to visit (seeing red deer, roe deer and wild boar). He has a fascinating tiktok channel, one of the videos which I include to the right. He is a regular at the hide, and has seen wolves around 50 times (so by no means every time).
There is a slight issue with the situation in this area. The Veluwe covers around 420 square miles, (do not be confused by the Veluwe Hoge national park – odd that it is allowed the name as it is a private venture).
This is where private ventures in conservation have issues.
The Veluwe Hoge national park has a very well put together page, and is far easier to find than the actual national park. However, it is there to make money. As such, they are quite against wolves.
Note: this video is currently not playing properly. Click the full screen and it will redirect you to the tiktok page in question
“We set out below the reasons why De Hoge Veluwe National Park is in favour of controlled management of wolves throughout the Netherlands and of keeping them out of the Park”.
Why is this a problem? Well it is quite simple. They are quite open on their website (visit the page on wolves here), but their reasons are quite hilarious.
“De Hoge Veluwe National Park manages its land in the most natural possible manner with the help of big game such as mouflons. This enables the Park to maintain open landscapes that are of ecological value and that provide visitors with a unique experience. Scientific research and almost 100 years of experience have taught us that, within the context of the Netherlands, active management of big game populations and vegetation is needed for the preservation of optimal biodiversity and a rich, varied landscape. That ultimately resulted in a large proportion of Natura 2000 habitats – protected European landscapes with extremely vulnerable species.”
Without thinking too closely, one might believe that the above is reasonable, but this is right below the line about keeping them out of the park. While would one suggest that you want to manage the land in the most natural way and wish to permanently exclude the main predator?
I would argue that they are quite clear – their primary goal is not conservation, but instead tourism revenue. They believe that this is best raised, through visitors being met with large herds of deer, or flocks of wild mouflon. But what is so stupid about this position, is that this is not natural. The only reason that large herds are capable of roaming together is because the wolf was missing.
There is also a great deal, made throughout the site about how guests want to see the mouflon and the deer species, and to be sure, we were pleased to see the deer (though we saw no mouflon). However, I think if you did a survey in the general public about whether people were more interested in seeing wolves or deer, the majority of people would be more interested in seeing wolves.
Indeed, this seems such a well known fact, it is hard to fathom the absurdity of suggesting anything else.
We hope to add this as a location in the next few weeks.
