1 February 2018

IFLScience: Wolf Found In Belgium For The First Time In Over A Century

“The wolf has stayed near the Flemish town of Beringen and the military base at Leopoldsburg. The animal has covered 500 kilometers (310 miles) in 10 days,” said the Belgian environmental group Landschap. The team has been tracking the wolf, which made its way across the German-Dutch border from the northern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on Christmas day last year.

Since then, the animal has wandered north, between both the Belgian and Dutch provinces of Limburg, before being recorded around the outskirts of Leopoldsburg. This is the first official record of a wolf in the country for over 100 years, although it is thought that one may have been snapped on a camera trap in the southern province of the Ardennes in 2011, but there were no hairs or spoor to confirm this. [...]

The whole idea of rewilding involving apex predators such as wolves has been a highly contentious point. In many rural parts of France and Spain, for example, farmers have heavily resisted the idea, worried about the threat that the predators may or may not pose to their flocks. These negative perceptions of the animals are further supported by how they are portrayed culturally and within the media.

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