Wolf’s ‘disturbing’ behaviour prompts urgent warning to keep children out of forest

Authorities in the Netherlands have issued an urgent warning after a wolf exhibited “disturbing” behaviour, reportedly approaching children twice in a hiking area near Utrecht.

They called on “all visitors to be extremely cautious when visiting the Utrecht Hill Ridge area”. “It is strongly advised not to visit these woods with young children,” authorities in the Utrecht province said in a statement.

The warning came after “a large animal” knocked over a child in the village of Austerlitz east of Utrecht, The Guardian reported. A DNA test confirmed the animal to be a wolf.

Utrecht Hill Ridge, a heavily forested region, is popular with hikers, cyclists and runners. The area saw wolves reappear in 2015, after an absence of about 150 years.

The population of wolves in Europe has grown markedly due to conservation efforts, leading to an increase in human-animal encounters.

A nature park in central Netherlands was partly shut down last month after a girl was bitten by a wolf, reported AFP.

A survey by Dutch voting advice website Kieskompas and ANP news agency in July found that one in three Dutch people don’t want a wolf in the country, a marked decline in the share of wolf supporters from 41 per cent last year to 36 per cent this year.

The country has seen increasing wolf attacks on livestock and pets of late. There were as many as 267 reports of wolf attacks on domestic animals in the first quarter of 2024 compared to 77 over the same period last year, an analysis by ANP showed.