The number of attacks by wolves on cattle increased in the first half of 2025, but most farmers did not take the recommended precautions, according to an ANP analysis of figures from provincial wolf monitoring body BIJ12.

The agency recorded 497 attacks on sheep and other livestock in the first six months of this year, compared to 360 last year.

Most attacks occurred in the north and the east of the country, with Gelderland clocking up 191 and Drenthe and Friesland around 100.

In some 85% of cases, farmers had neglected to protect their livestock from attack, for instance by installing wolf-proof fencing. Farmers are compensated for every dead animal.

Reports of attacks have fallen since May 15, probably because wolves are feeding on more abundant young deer.

Wolves had been extinct in the Netherlands for 200 years until their return in 2015, when the first animals were sighted.  Between October 16, 2024, and March of this year, DNA probes have ascertained the presence of 11 packs comprised of some 85 wolves.

MEPs recently voted in favour of the decision by the European Commission to lower the status of the wolf from “strictly protected” to “protected”, after an assessment concluded that the wolf’s population had increased and presented a threat to farmers and livestock.

In the Netherlands, Utrecht provincial authorities have given permission to kill a wolf implicated in several attacks on people, the latest of which involved a boy in the woods of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug.

Hunters have until January 1 to shoot  “problem wolf” GW3237m, also known as Bram, but so far he has managed to elude them.

In May, Gelderland province authorised the shooting of a wolf that twice bit a woman who was running in the Veluwe national park in April. That wolf has not been killed yet.