Hans

@hans1671102377 · 14 May 2023

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Wolvland

“Something very double is happening in me,” says the sheep shepherdess Erika Visser from Drenthe about the moment she was shown images of a couple of wolves near her own animals. “I can just feel my heart racing because I think: this is really just crazy. So cool! And on the other hand, I think: holy crap, this is just behind the grid with my sheep. My sheep are actually in danger.'

So many sheep farmers and shepherds want to keep the animal away from their herd at all costs. Shoot that animal! Or else take serious measures: from special dogs to huge fences. Some, like Jehan Bouma from Wolvenhek Fryslân, are trying to make their struggle epic, even taking “good/bad old” Hans Wiegel out of the stable.

“Because of the wolf, all horses, sheep and cows from the country will disappear,” says Bouma a little later, sitting on his horse like a cool knight. “Before that, it will cause untold suffering for all animals and their owners. But we do want to try to drive this unwanted stranger, the wolf, out of Friesland. Just like what happened to that Dutch earl in 1345.'

With a whole row of riders on horseback, the Frisian flag and pompous music, he thus directs a rather graceful media moment. The other side of the wolf discussion is also not averse to the press. When forest ranger Frank Theunissen finds a she-wolf in his area, after jumping a hole in the air himself, he immediately gets a name: Toska. And then a male actually comes into the picture.

When Toska, much to the sadness of Theunissen and his colleagues, does not work out as hoped, the most motivating part of this film, that big news is also published in the media. Because the wolf is not only a “top predator” who is looking for its place in the Netherlands again, it has now also become a media myth. A discussion animal that makes it easy to score for all sides.

Koppen highlights all these aspects of the wolf, including visiting a nature museum and observing a taxidermist manufacturing a stuffed version of the much-discussed animal. Although Wolvenland walks away a bit at the end — another keeper or shepherd with sheep bitten to death — the film has already made its point: that ruined wolf has come to stay.

And we, the seventeen million wolf experts in the Netherlands, are far from done talking about that. Text by Helmut Boeijen #wolven #peasants