A six-year-old child has become the latest victim of a horrific wolf attack after being bitten and dragged off into the woods in front of his petrified mother. The boy had been playing in a nature reserve near Utrecht in the Netherlands when the wolf suddenly appeared, pouncing on the youngster before taking him away.
Watching on horrified, his mum Nynke was in the popular park with her two boys as they visited a popular monument. First seeing the wolf from a distance, she thought it must have just been a friendly dog, with its owner soon following. Speaking to RTV Utrecht, she said: “I thought it was a playful dog running towards us and thought ‘nice, I’ll go and play. But before I got there, I heard my eldest son screaming very loudly. He was jumped by the animal and dragged into the woods.”
The wolf began to bite into the boy, leaving him with some severe wounds and in need of stitches. Luckily, before the attack could get worse, two men nearby saw the attack and began chasing down the creature armed with some sticks and branches.
Nynke added: “There were two men with big sticks who beat the animal, and eventually they got it off my son. I was in a state of total panic and grief. I’m very happy that I wasn’t alone with my two children.”
But this isn’t the animal’s first attack; it is the latest in a string of incidents in the reserve with the “problem wolf,” whose tagging number is GW3237m—being given the nickname Bram. The animal has also attacked a toddler and another young girl.
Tests are now being done using DNA samples to understand if it was the same wolf behind all of the attacks, as all attempts to capture Bram are yet to be successful.
While the test results are confirmed, a court has decided to give permission for reserve rangers to shoot the wolf, if spotted again, with locals also being told not to visit with young children or dogs.
A spokesman for the Den Treek estate told De Telegraaf: “Let’s face it, it probably wasn’t a rabbit and this is the umpteenth incident, so I don’t want to wait for that.
“They haven’t succeeded yet, because the forest is extremely busy due to the holidays. Let’s hope the wolf is caught soon.”
After being hunted to extinction more than two hundred years ago, the animals have begun returning to many parts of Europe, having been confirmed to have returned to Germany just over five years ago.
Their recovery has been largely natural. Wolves expanded their range through natural migration and recolonisation rather than through reintroduction programs, and there are now an estimated 20,000 to 23,000 wolves across the continent.
No wolves have been brought back to the British Isles, but there have been discussions and research into the possibility of reintroducing wolves to the UK, particularly Scotland, but there are currently no concrete plans for this to happen.