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Wolves are reconquering Europe. Can people learn to live with them?

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Re: Wolves are reconquering Europe. Can people learn to live with them?

#41

Post by AlotOfReading »

gbraad wrote: post #35
pwthornton wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A healthy, non-rabid wolf killing a human is way less likely than being killed by a lightning strike. Farmers are also heavily subsidized in Europe.

Are you a farmer speaking out of experience? I can tell you from family that your perception is wrong. This subsidizing is not a EU standard practice, and not for all sectors of agricultural development. This idea that subsidizing offsets the loss of livestock sounds weird to me, as is the risk of a human attack. Europe is far more densely populated than most other places that have to deal with bears, coyotes or so,…

The EU has a €300B program directly subsidizing farmers [0]. To quote the wiki page:

     The [EAGF] consumes a large part of the general budget of the European Union.
Apparently the overarching CAP program consumes something like 30+% of the budget, so I'd love to know what you consider "heavily subsidized" if this doesn't merit.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Agricultural_Guarante...

Re: Wolves are reconquering Europe. Can people learn to live with them?

#43

Post by csomar »

pwthornton wrote: post #33
gbraad wrote: post #28

Yes and no. In Germany they have a county that at least helps to make the wolves fear people, by actively go after them with dogs, while in the Netherlands people are waiting for the first fatal victim before action will be taken, as currently the animal concerns outweigh those of people. For now, farmers have to pay the price; while they get a small compensation from most governments it will never offset the loss. S…

A healthy, non-rabid wolf killing a human is way less likely than being killed by a lightning strike. Farmers are also heavily subsidized in Europe.

Is this, however, because humans rarely encounter wolves? I can see wolves attacking a large man, but can see them picking a kid if he is walking alone to school.

Re: Wolves are reconquering Europe. Can people learn to live with them?

#44

Post by gbraad »

csomar wrote: post #43
pwthornton wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A healthy, non-rabid wolf killing a human is way less likely than being killed by a lightning strike. Farmers are also heavily subsidized in Europe.

Is this, however, because humans rarely encounter wolves? I can see wolves attacking a large man, but can see them picking a kid if he is walking alone to school.

This has happened; not fatally. Last July and August kids have been attacked, involved a 6yo boy; bite marks and abrasions after being dragged. While these kids survived, there is emotional damage. I was attacked by a dog, a bred that is now illegal to own, when I was a kid. And I can tell you that this fear stayed with me till late in adulthood. The encounters have become more regular as places like Belgium, Netherlands are more densely populated or in close proximity to forests. Warthogs have attacked people in my area, but they are not a false and smart like a wolf is. They are a lot more opportunistic in their approach and stealthy. So yes, the number of incidents are rising.

https://www.rtvutrecht.nl/nieuws/3929221/jongetje-6-dat-bos-...

The worst part is, often the problem wolf is known to people (multiple incidents), but there is no permit to deal with it, or just difficult even when permit is granted. There is no real plan for this

Re: Wolves are reconquering Europe. Can people learn to live with them?

#46

Post by robtro »

Just get proper dogs again to protect the livestock.

I really don't understand how people can't just look at how farmers in areas with wolves handle it and how we handled it in the past.

Eliminating all predators is also not that great then you get tons of hogs and deer etc.

People in other regions are still alive with way more dangerous predators than here in Europe I personally think it's more an education problem that people get way too close to wild animals just have a look at any social media and you see that most people have no basic education about how wild animals should be handled.

Re: Wolves are reconquering Europe. Can people learn to live with them?

#47

Post by gbraad »

idiotsecant wrote: post #19
warumdarum wrote: post #16

No, because predators follow exponential curves leading to prey collapses during winters where hungry animals will abandon shyness to hunt for humans in suburbs.

I live in an extremely rural county. There are plenty of wolves here. None of them hunt for humans. Ever.

This is not the same for places like the Veluwe and Utrecht in the Netherlands, where wolves have attacked people already. They do not fear people as much...

Forest rich areas are close to urban areas, and they have been spotted in border regions already.

Re: Wolves are reconquering Europe. Can people learn to live with them?

#48

Post by gbraad »

hcfman wrote: post #7
the_real_cher wrote: post #6

Are wolves even a threat? Outside of movies theyre pretty harmless.

Oh there no denying that they are a threat to live stock that are not protected. And sometimes even when they, as the sometimes can get over fences. In the Netherlands there are 14 wolf packs and 144 wolves in a geographical small area where the surrounding farms are often full of a lot sheep. But it’s also easy to imagine that if you can become aware of the presents of wolves sufficiently early enough and reliably e…

So far these packs are monitored, but they contain problem wolves that have been known to attack people. Examples in Utrecht and veluwe, and it takes just a little to learn from those; the issue is that the wolves do not see people as a threat. So far there have been incidents, like bite marks, until they will attack in a group. They should adopt the German method to scare them away proactively

Re: Wolves are reconquering Europe. Can people learn to live with them?

#49

Post by gonzalohm »

pocksuppet wrote: post #30
gonzalohm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people are like that when dealing with nature. Oh I don't want squirrels in my backyard, let me put some poison... We really don't deserve a place on this planet

That's a fine attitude for squirrels which are ultimately harmless, but wolves can attack people, although that's somewhat rare, not like bears which attack you every time. Wikipedia says wolves are more likely to attack humans if they've been living around humans for a while - they learn that humans are viable prey, not that humans are harmless.

Climate change also kills people and we don't do anything about it

Re: Wolves are reconquering Europe. Can people learn to live with them?

#50

Post by jltsiren »

pocksuppet wrote: post #30
gonzalohm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people are like that when dealing with nature. Oh I don't want squirrels in my backyard, let me put some poison... We really don't deserve a place on this planet

That's a fine attitude for squirrels which are ultimately harmless, but wolves can attack people, although that's somewhat rare, not like bears which attack you every time. Wikipedia says wolves are more likely to attack humans if they've been living around humans for a while - they learn that humans are viable prey, not that humans are harmless.

Bear attacks depend on the (sub)species. European brown bears are very shy and much less likely to attack people than wolves.

Finnish people traditionally respected bears but were not afraid of them. Historical records mostly tell of two kinds of bear attacks. Either children / old people herding cattle in the forest accidentally got too close to a bear cub, or adult men were hunting bears and something went wrong.

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