Good news from Germany!
Germany hears the call of the wild as wolves return after 200 years. By David Wroe. News.scotsman.com.
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is past President of the Western Watersheds Project.
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A steady to and from of wolves and moose from Poland seems assured! Too bad Poland can´t give us bears too! None left in the western parts.
Ha, ha… I see Germany has rednecks too.
“Their campaign has been picked up by tabloid papers, one of which, Bild, has recently run headlines including “Shoot the Lausitzer wolves!” …and “We won’t live in fear any more!”
Good grief.
Nice to see stupidity exists elsewhere.
On the bright side, “Many still grumble, but most are prepared to accept the return of the wolves.” And the fines given the hunters in Saxony sound pretty substantial. Glad to hear the wolf is returning to Germany. I was just over there last November and didn’t see much wildlife.
Indeed the situation is not as bleak as it may look. The anti-wolf community is relatively quiet. Even wolf tourism has started on a small scale albeit chances to actually see a wolf are slim. And who trusts “Bild” anyway? “Bild”, comparable only to the British “Sun” , with nothing similar in the US, has the absolute highest circulation in Germany but the anti-wolf sentiments with all those blood stained imaginations are published in local issues only. Anyway, everybody knows about the poor journalism of “Bild” and their gross exaggerations for the benefit of circulation numbers only. Mike, don´t know where you have been but I can assure you, there are many areas with lot´s of wildlife.
Try this link for a few very rare pictures of “our” wolves:
http://www.wolfsregion-lausitz.de/index.php?article_id=47&clang=
The website itself is unfortunately in german language only but I know that quite a few of you know enough german words to navigate around these pages.
Well…for me being from Poland it is a good export!!!
We also have bison..on the easter border of my country.
And we don’t kill them!!!
Hello Izabela,
Poland has established the first European National Parks, and in the meantime has around 20 in total, impressive! I have visited only one so far in eastern Poland but was fascinated of the rich wildlife and the ancient forests, not to mention the friendly people there. I hope Poland and Ukraine can keep their borders “wild”.
There are plans to release a herd of these bison (Bison bonasus or “Wisent” ) in a German forest. The project leader told me recently that a few hurdles remain to overcome but he is confident to see a release in 2010.
Peter,
thank you for the good news.
Sometimes I worry that because there are social problems on the eastern site of Poland and Belarous, where one of the national park is ‘ Bialowieza’, where the bisons still roam free….some may use them as source of food.
Lets hope not.
I am thrilled for wolves who came from Poland to Germany..;)
at least some good friendship…
A few updates from the German/Polish wolf population.
Radio collared yearling “Alan” from one of the German packs has turned out to be a real traveller. While the other two collared yearlings stay close to their home territory, Alan travelled through Poland in the recent months and in early July he crossed into Belorussia, near the border with Lithuania, some 400 miles from his home territory. Virtually nothing is known about the dispersal of wolf yearlings in Germany, therefore the collaring of a few individuals seems to be acceptable. This comes with news from Poland that wolf population in western Poland is recovering again with about 13 packs around at the moment.
In early June there was an incident during a hunt in Saxony-Anhalt, involving a hunter who deliberately killed a wolf, the male adult of a pair expected to have a litter of pubs. With so many witnesses present, he voluntarily rendered his hunter licence and the gun to the officials. Wolves are heavily protected in Germany and a hunter not thoroughly familiar with the hunting grounds is not even permitted to kill a stray dog. The fine for killing a heavily protected wolf could theoretically be as high as 50 000 € plus some time in prison thus in similar earlier cases it was only a fraction of that sum and nobody has hitherto spent only a single day in prison for killing a wolf or lynx.
Good to see wolves making a come back in other parts of the world as well. It is also comforting to see that Germany also has some of the Little Red Riding Hood fear. Now the US doesn’t look so bad. 🙂