The EU has decided to reimburse farmers for damages caused by large carnivores such as bears, lynxes, and wolves. Costs for erecting electric fences and guard dogs are also included in the program. The development comes as populations of large carnivores rebound from near extinction under legal protection by the state. There are now an estiamted 17,000 brown bears in Europe spread over 22 countries. They are still rare, but in some places like Catabria, Spain they have doubled in number over ten years.
Wolf numbers in Germany have increased since crossing over the Öder from Poland to the point that they spill over into the Netherlands and allegedly take sheep. Occasional wolf sightings have been made in the Netherlands since 2015; now It appears from sign on the ground that at least one wolf pack has established itself there. France has seen a sharp increase in the amount of predation on sheep with 10,000 incidents recorded in 2016. Since returning to France from Italy, wolves there probably number over 500. Denmark now has its first resident wolf pack in 200 years. Aarhus University has permission to tag and follow ten wolves in order to protect them from hunters. Jutland farmers are concerned that the wolves are varying their normal diet of deer with some occasional sheep.
Wolf numbers in Germany have increased since crossing over the Öder from Poland to the point that they spill over into the Netherlands and allegedly take sheep. Occasional wolf sightings have been made in the Netherlands since 2015; now It appears from sign on the ground that at least one wolf pack has established itself there. France has seen a sharp increase in the amount of predation on sheep with 10,000 incidents recorded in 2016. Since returning to France from Italy, wolves there probably number over 500. Denmark now has its first resident wolf pack in 200 years. Aarhus University has permission to tag and follow ten wolves in order to protect them from hunters. Jutland farmers are concerned that the wolves are varying their normal diet of deer with some occasional sheep.
Wolves suffer from bad PR. Their "big bad wolf" persona of legend is mostly myth say animal behaviorists. They are highly social, cooperative and intelligent animals. In fact in a classic test of intelligence and cooperative behavior they exceed our domesticated dogs. In the rope-pulling test, where subjects are only rewarded if they pull on ropes together to reach a tray of food, scientists found wolves succeeded 100 times in 416 attempts, about the same performance level as chimpanzees. Dogs, however succeeded only twice in 472 attempts, probably because they were waiting for the scientists to just give them the food. It is the wolf's cooperative social behavior that made it a good candidate for human domestication around thirty thousand years ago. This long period of association with humans eventually altered wolf behavior and genes resulting in a unique canine species.
Conservationists hope that new relaxed rules for full compensation, including veterinarian treatment for affected livestock, will reduce the need for culls and human revenge attacks. In a loose economic union like the EU, there will always be states that do not comply with the central government regulations. In Romania compensaton for predator attacks have been witheld. Some scare mongering by politicans has also taken place, raising concern that humans could be endangered. These claims are dismissed as unlikely by animal behavior experts who say the natural behavior of larger carnivores is to avoid humans if possible as they are not natural prey and are considered dangerous by the animals. Millenia of agressive behavior by humans has ingrained their avoidance behavior.
