A wolf killed the EU president’s precious pony - then the fight to catch the predator began
A wolf killed the EU president’s precious pony - then the fight to catch the predator began
After being hunted to near extinction, wolves have returned to Europe. But when one killed Ursula von der Leyen’s family pony, it ignited a high-stakes battle. Are the animals’ days numbered?
Wolves have adapted swiftly and surely to human-dominated landscapes. But people are struggling to adjust to the wolves. The concentration of packs, von der Leyen declared when announcing the commission’s review of wolf protection laws, “has become a real danger for livestock and potentially also for humans”.
In December, the commission proposed to reduce the wolf’s status under the Bern Convention from “strictly protected” to “protected” in order to introduce “further flexibility” – potentially enabling wolves to be hunted and populations reduced across the EU.
Many populist politicians across Europe hope that talking up the threat of the wolf – alongside tough measures to tackle it – will win support ahead of next summer’s elections to the European parliament.
Oh yeah lets fuck up the wolf population again, now that they are finally returning to Germany after over a CENTURY.
Fuck vdL and fuck this sort of human-centric view of controlling local fauna.
Everytime it has been done so far - either by hunting or introducing a new species, it had unforseen consequences.
Humans, killing Billions of animals every year: It's nature, I'm a lion.
Nature kills animals: Nuke it from orbit!
and potentially also for humans
Conservative politicians talking about stuff they don't understand. Again. A story as old as politics.
Let's continue to vote people into positions with power who lack the necessary brain cells to make informed and scientifically founded decisions. It has been working great so far as well. Didn't it?
Zensursuala/Flinten-Uschi/Ursula von der Leyarbeit performs exactly as expected in every job she gets. The she's promoted away to the next post... I'm really eager to know what her next position will be.
I have no idea who this person is but they look straight up like a young adult movie villain.
All you really need to know is that said person failed upwards and then got into it's current position by a backroom deal that ignored the EU election results.
IMHO very questionable at least, at best not good in that position either.
Someone should start hunting people. We're the fucking pest here.
The germans did try that once. It was not considered a great succes.
This is close to a nothing burger.
DNA evidence harvested from the pony’s carcass revealed that the wolf was an individual known as GW950m. This mature male wolf, which heads a pack (a wolf family usually numbering eight to 10) living around the von der Leyen residence, appears to have developed a taste for livestock. DNA tests on other carcasses implicates him in the deaths of about 70 sheep, horses, cattle and goats.
That's the norm for bears that learned eating humans, for example. These animals, once they learned there are free vitamins, will continue to penetrate into human neighborhoods, eat humans, or ponies in this case.
Any animal that eats and breeds without something to keep it in check will become a pest for its environment. We see this at every stage.
Indeed, I recently had a discussion about just that with a family relative who is very adamant against wolves but then started complaining about all those beavers and deer over population. You can't make it up. Is it a good idea to control that wolf population? Probably yes, can that wolf population help with solving other issues? Probably yes.
Yeah, human population levels have really gone out of control. Maybe the wolves can finally restore some balance.
fuck crooked ursula. she gave contracts state to ey! and kpmg when her stupid kids were interns there.
fuck crooked ursula. she gave contracts state to ey! and kpmg when her stupid kids were interns there.
That's what she meant by "think of the children". Can't say she was insincere about that, then.
obvious /s is obvious
This is the best summary I could come up with:
It was a mild, windless night, sometime before dawn on 1 September 2022, when a large grey wolf trotted out of the woods beside Beinhorn, a hamlet of old barns and graceful wooden houses in the German state of Lower Saxony.
Many populist politicians across Europe hope that talking up the threat of the wolf – alongside tough measures to tackle it – will win support ahead of next summer’s elections to the European parliament.
On the other side, wolf-haters claim that this ruthless carnivore’s return has been naively championed by the tofu-munching wokerati who know nothing of the countryside, elevate the welfare of animals above people, and inflict misery upon farmers, hunters and country folk.
For all the wolf’s wild symbolism, it is thriving in human-dominated landscapes: the intensively farmed countryside and even suburban areas of eastern Germany with human population densities higher than the city of Newcastle.
According to Raoul Reding, the association’s biologist who oversees the meticulous recording of populations, we are witnessing an unprecedented experiment: “It’s never happened before, anywhere in the world, that such large carnivores would settle such densely inhabited human areas as we have here in Germany.”
Vice-president Jörn Ehlers hands me two stickers: one depicts a vicious-looking wolf with a sheep in its mouth barred with a red line; the other reads: IF YOU DON’T LIKE FARMING, STOP EATING.
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