Last night a young wolf was killed in Hechtel Eksel in Limburg. It is probably an animal that was born in Limburg.
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A dead wolf was found this morning on the N74 near Hechtel-Eksel. The animal must have been hit by a car during the night from Thursday 8 to Friday 9 October. According to Jan Loos of Welkom Wolf, who received the first report, there is little doubt that it is a wild wolf and not a free-roaming wolf dog. The carcass has been transferred to the Natuurhulpcentrum Oudsbergen. There it will be collected as soon as possible by employees of the Institute for Nature and Forest Research (Inbo), so that it can be tested genetically today.
Chances are it is one of four cubs from the litter raised this spring by wolves Noëlla and August. The cubs, called the ‘Bosland Daltons’ by the Flemish Minister for the Environment, Zuhal Demir (N-VA), are the first wild wolves to have been born in Flanders in more than a century, because the wolf has been here for so long. was extinct in the wild. On recent video images, made by an unmanned wildlife camera, one of the four had not been visible for some time. It is suspected that a second one has now also died.
The collision is not entirely unexpected. Flanders has a dense road network with insufficient wildlife passages. Collisions with wild animals, especially wild boars, are a growing problem in Limburg. At the beginning of 2018, a wolf was already killed in Opoeteren, Limburg. That wolf, called Roger, was the second wolf officially sighted in Flanders, after the she-wolf Naya, who may have been the victim of poachers in the spring of 2019.
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