To think the reintroduction of the wild Wolf to Belgium is insanity?

[HoppsAndSpice]

Wild Wolves have been reintroduced into Belgium over the last couple of weeks. This has led to the great dismay of the local farming community and outrage from the country as a whole. I am personally thinking about the many farmers who will lose cattle and sheep to the wolves and the impact it will have on their livelihood. Also the impact it will have on the wider ecosystem as a whole which could see various creatures such as rabbits, hares and other small mammals hunted in large quantities.

Wolves have a very inefficient digestive system as do most carnivores which means they need large quantities of meat to survive.

Its a very interesting one but I think this needs resolving urgently as a matter of urgency.

To be fair OP, 20km is quite a long swim for a wolf

m.youtube.com/watch?v=HWTnoRofX5o

BBC news

Have you actually seen the size of Belgian rabbits? It's clear the lack of predation has made them fat and lazy, and allowed them to grow to enormous sizes.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_Giant_rabbit

I'd be more scared off bumping into one of these guys than a wolf tbh. Maybe Belgians should just be carrying around giant comedy carrots in case of an encounter

There are no current wolves in the UK hence if they managed to get here from Belgium (entirely possible) then they would be an invasive species like crayfish. Which are extremely hard to eradicate in which I’ve had personal experience.

Maybe they’ve been in training? Picked up a few tips from David Walliams and a swimming hat and goggles from JD Sports.

But your mythical illegal boatwolves would need to firstly know that there's land worth settling on the other side of that Channel before deciding to embark on such a long and treacherous swim - for what exactly? I mean, if they're chomping their way through all the native European critters AND all the farm animals what's the incentive to attempt the swim, even if it were possible?

Whilst the Belgian rabbits are very large and often the butt of the joke amongst their community it is not fair that on this basis alone they should be hunted to extinction by invasive wolves.

it again upsets the balance of their delicate ecosystem and is wrong in a landlocked country.

Don’t worry we will send them to Rwanda.

You can often see across the channel on clear days which means many wolves would have clear line of sight across the Strait of Dover.

That has cracked me up 🤣. I even did a little snort (though no tea came out).

“The Wolf which has been reintroduced into Belgium has the potential to become an invasive species and kill off native creatures in Russia etc.”

I’ll bite.

Given that Russia already has wolves, why exactly are we worrying about Belgian wolves crossing the Volga, but have not been worried about - and even bothered by - Russian wolves in search of waffles?

Those sneaky bastards will be over the Channel before you know it. Stay alert!

The BBC report says wolves are back in Belgium, not that they have been reintroduced. It's part of the natural recovery of the European population after centuries of persecution, hunting, poisoning etc.

We need to form a defensive wall of bison.

Okay so you’re right the question is now who put them there and why. And what next steps and actions they will take. It is possible that working in conjunction with certain humans these wolves would be reintroduced globally especially into ecosystems which are now very fragile and could not handle the influx for example the Amazon.

Wolves are native to Europe, just as they were native to the UK before we killed them all. If they were causing an EU country any real problems then I’m quite sure that country wouldn’t hesitate to cull them all. But they haven’t. Which suggests that they don’t cause that much harm. And there are bears and wolves and lots of other non human friendly animals throughout Europe. None have made it here yet.

There are conservation programmes all over the place trying to reintroduce wild animals back into their natural habitats. Why is it nice when it’s tigers but dreadful when it’s wolves?

It also says they have extremely inefficient digestive systems which like I’ve said worries me.

Don’t worry, they’ll get 5 meters out and think bugger this for a lark and go find fat Flemish rabbits instead.

Where were you trying to eliminate crayfosh from?
It's not anything along the lines of Derek and Clive's Worst Job is it?

you’re right OP but at least it’s not BISON

There’s something vaguely familiar about all this. Can’t quite put my finger on it…

’It also says they have extremely inefficient digestive systems which like I’ve said worries me.’

Yakult?

Feed the local rabbit population on milk of magnesia and Buscopan. Wolf digestive issues sorted.

I don't think Belgium is a landlocked country?

I am part of a team of people dedicated to the eradication of invasive species so we have been trying to resolve the grey squirrel and American crayfish problem through eradication. We currently do not have the resource to deal with the threat that a third massively invasive species (wolves) would cause which is why it’s such a problem for me.