widthind brought the smell of fresh hay to the side of the road. Gabriela Depenau is leaning on a tall fence post. A few meters away there is a horse gnawing on the dense grass, not far from the other members of his horse herd. There are 40 animals belonging to it. But idyllic poems are deceptive. As GW950m and GW1423f made Burgdorfer Holz their domain, the peaceful rural life in Hanover’s horse district is over.
Thirty years ago, when Gabriela Depenau and her husband established their horse farm in Dedenhausen, 34 kilometers east of Hanover, there were no wolves here yet-since 1872 Since the hunter killed the corpse of King George V of Hanover, it is now Lower Saxony. However, Isegrim has sneaked from the Saxon part of Lausitz to most parts of Germany for about 20 years. “There are 20 to 25 people living in Burgdorfer Holz, so it may be the largest group in Germany,” Depenau said. Since then, it has become important to protect 150 horses from the breeding effects of ourselves and the horse boarding houses. A battle for survival-both sides. The farmer not only installed fences and cameras to protect her animals, but also advocated changing the management of predators that were previously strictly protected.
According to the latest monitoring of wolves by the federal government, in May 2020, there were 128 wolves, 39 pairs and 9 individual animals in Germany. Approximately 84% of wolves live in Brandenburg, Saxony and Lower Saxony. “We have a very high density of wolves in Germany, even higher than in Yellowstone National Park,” said Klaus Harker, chairman of the German Wildlife Foundation and professor of wildlife biology and hunting management at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna. Rand said. According to a study by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Germany still provides a lot of space for wolves. The country has prepared approximately 700 to 1,400 territories, which means there will be room for approximately 10,000 wolves-ten times more than today. This can be achieved very quickly, as the population grows by about 35% every year.
The same goes for the wolves at the door of Depenaus. “Last year they had eight puppies, this year they should have seven puppies,” she said. So living together in Burgdorfer Holz becomes more and more difficult because the robbers are hungry. According to the analysis of more than 8,000 fecal samples by the Senckenberg Museum für Naturkunde in Gorlitz, German wolves mainly feed on wild animals: roe deer, wild boar and red deer. Sheep, goats, cattle or horses do not occupy the dominant position, accounting for 1.6%.
However: As the number of wolves increases, so does the number of cunning farm animals (see picture). “Last year, three horses were torn apart within a five-kilometer radius. First, the Shetland ponies, then the bigger ponies, and then the Tinker mare in September,” DePeno said. The latter is a handsome carriage. If an animal is torn off, the owner can get up to 5000 euros in compensation from the state-which is not much for a thoroughbred horse, “in addition, they are family members”. For wolves, enclosed food is easier to catch than agile deer. “Wolves are just opportunists,” Klaus Hackland said. They eat what is most readily available.
