Local government turns down pack of FOI requests on wolf attacks

Drenthe’s provincial government has accused a resident who submitted nearly 800 requests for details of attacks by wolves of abusing the freedom of information system.

The province rejected a request filed last year for information about attacks by wolves on livestock on the grounds that the scope was too broad.

Four days after making its decision on May 11, the province received 768 separate applications listing each recorded attack separately. A second flurry of submissions raised the total number to 792.

Explaining its decision, the provincial government said it would have taken five officials two months to retrieve all the information. It added it suspected the flood of requests had been made “vengefully”.

“By overwhelming the province’s organisation with so many separate requests, we can draw no other conclusion than that you are not concerned with the underlying information but with paralysing the province’s organisation,” it said its response.