Photo: M. Zonderling on Unsplash
The Netherlands can support 23 to 56 grey wolf packs, ecologists from Wageningen calculate. ‘A unusable and wholly irresponsible number’, says BBB State Secretary Jean Rummenie.
Unwelcome research findings are nothing new for policymakers in The Hague. But caretaker State Secretary Jean Rummenie (BBB) for Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature is now even dissatisfied with the results of a grey wolf study he himself commissioned. In it, ecologists and legal scholars from Wageningen University (WUR), Tilburg University and the Belgian Research Institute for Nature and Forest report on 19 September that the Netherlands can accommodate a maximum of 23 to 56 grey wolf packs.
Unusable
‘With this study, WUR has provided an ecologically and technically sound answer to my question, but the results are consequently theoretical and not usable for my purposes. I expected the study to take into account the specific situation of a small and densely populated country like the Netherlands. Unfortunately, that is not the case’, Rummenie writes in a letter to the House of Representatives. He regards the calculations as ‘unusable and irresponsible’ as a basis for policy.
Misleading
According to WUR, Rummenie’s response is ‘not only incorrect, but also misleading’ (Resource, 22 September). The researchers had in fact adhered scrupulously to the terms of the research commission and had therefore not examined the societal effects of a larger grey wolf population – something clearly stated on page three of the report. A possible contributing factor is that the newspaper De Telegraaf launched a reader debate on 19 September under the heading Praat Mee, asking: ‘Should the grey wolf continue to be protected?’ What is beyond dispute is that the grey wolf, after an absence of 150 years, is in the process of establishing itself in the Netherlands. Over ten years, the number of grey wolf packs rose from 1 in 2015 to 13, with at least 67 grey wolves recorded in 2025 (bij12.nl, 15 September). In accordance with a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice, every member state – including the Netherlands – must contribute to the conservation of the grey wolf on its own territory. According to the recent WUR report, a sustainable grey wolf population in Central Europe consists of five hundred packs. The Netherlands can contribute a maximum of 23 to 56 packs to this total, as 32 to 181 areas of 100 square kilometres are more or less suitable as grey wolf habitat. ‘Choosing fewer animals in the Netherlands requires more animals in the other countries’, the report helpfully notes.
In his letter to parliament, Rummenie states that he is commissioning follow-up research into the Conservation Status of the grey wolf – along with socio-economic considerations and physical safety – to be carried out by an ‘international expert research party’.