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The wolf’s final moments, caught by the wolf-spotters’ camera.
The wolf’s final moments, caught by the wolf-spotters’ camera. Photograph: Danish Broadcasting Corporation
The wolf’s final moments, caught by the wolf-spotters’ camera. Photograph: Danish Broadcasting Corporation

They want a wolf-free Denmark. Will migrants be next?

This article is more than 5 years old
The recent shooting of an animal has shocked many Danes. But where I live, the pack mentality is on the rise

A wolf was killed last month, not far from where I live. Some years ago I moved from Copenhagen back to west Jutland, on Denmark’s North Sea coast. I settled where my grandmother comes from, among hardy Jutlanders in the beautiful, desolate countryside not far from the village of Ulfborg. The wolf showed up around that same time. Once wolves had given Ulfborg – literally “Wolf Castle” – its name, but they had long disappeared. The last Danish wolf – before their recent return – had been shot in 1813, and the species was not welcomed back: farmers worried about their animals, parents about their kids, and politicians about their votes.

Experts sent out to observe Denmark’s new wolves and reassure the population that these animals pose no danger to people have a tough time getting their message across. Fear quickly gathers pace on social media. People share fake stories about wolves and start seeing them everywhere. Facts give way to emotions.

Local politicians saw their chance and tapped into the fear. People were agitated. Recently in Ulfborg, an association was formed called Wolf-Free Denmark.

Then came 16 April: the killing. It was a classic scene: a couple of “wolf-spotters”, as they’re called, had gone into the forest. They’d been sitting there since early morning, filming a pair of wolves playing in a field.

Just after noon, a big tractor arrived. Witnesses later claimed it was pursuing one of the wolves. Meanwhile the driver filmed the scene on his mobile phone. The animal didn’t act aggressively, but eventually lay down to rest, a safe distance from the tractor. Soon afterwards, an SUV showed up. The man in the vehicle rolled down his window. At first the spotters thought he was filming the wolf too. The creature trotted away from the SUV, glanced over at it, and then suddenly: a shot. The wolf collapsed. It tried to get on its feet again, but died there in the field. The wolf-spotters filmed it all.

Hunting from a motor vehicle is illegal, and the wolf is a protected species in the European Union. That the man in the tractor happened to be a local politician with, at the time, his eye on a seat in parliament (he’s since stepped down, in the aftermath of the scandal) – and that the man later charged with poaching is a close relative (though he denies any wrongdoing) – is not as surprising as it ought to be. Public support for wolf hunting runs high around here. What was shocking was the way the killing occurred, as well as the local reaction. Many thought the shooter should get a medal. Some called the two spotters cowards. Some locals felt they had undermined something, but what? Not just the battle against wolves.

Members of the Danish Defence League at a far-right rally in Aarhus. Photograph: Fabian Bimmer/Reuters

There are pragmatic and reflective voices in the wolf debate. People and animals should be able to co-exist. It requires solutions. But the debate’s loudest voices speak of a Denmark that is too small for the wolf. They say it’s the European Union’s fault that the wolf even arrived – and also the EU that says we can’t shoot it. One day I heard somebody say we could outlaw burqas and wolves at the same time. Burqas and wolves!

There’s also talk about strengthening the Danish-German border. To secure it against anyone who comes across to take our things. Gangs of eastern European thieves, for instance. Thieves, yeah! And wolves! The wolves infringe on property rights too. The land belongs to us. And so the battle lines are clearly drawn: on one side, apparent wolf-haters; and on the other, a wolf and wolf-spotters, equipped only with a vacuum flask of coffee and a camera.

The Danish Broadcasting Corporation decided to broadcast the film of the killing on prime time. Viewers were shocked, and found it chilling. The following day, reporters visited a supermarket in Ulfborg. Some west Jutlanders declared that they didn’t like vigilantism, but the wolf had to go. A couple of older women didn’t mince their words: the shooter was a hero, and the remaining wolves should be captured, loaded on to a lorry and driven to Copenhagen.

It all has to do with the relationship between the periphery and the centre. If the wolf had been German, it ought to have been transported to Berlin; and a wolf recently spotted in Belgium should soon be put on a lorry bound for Brussels.

People who live far from our capital cities feel overlooked and victimised by globalisation. They are suspicious of experts, they don’t like change – and now they want to be heard.

They shout out for easy solutions. Politicians seize on the popular mood. And there’s momentum in populism: Donald Trump, Brexit, Alternative für Deutschland, the far-right Danish People’s party; and big lorries that can cart away everything we don’t think belongs.

The day after the killing of the wolf was broadcast, I went for a long walk down by the sea, saddened and afraid. It wasn’t merely a wolf that had been harmed; peace of mind had suffered as well. Thoughtful voices were being squeezed out by extreme positions. The wolf has adapted to a Europe in peacetime. It crosses borders, and we now have to find a way to co-exist with it. The only viable option is to take practical precautions and allay fears. That requires a willingness to learn about the habits of wolves, and to listen – at a time when so many people would rather shout in social-media echo chambers.

The last time that wolves were eradicated from Jutland, the few trees left had all been bowed to the ground by the western wind. Everything was heath. People, sheep and wolves all starved. The land was impoverished.

Things are different now. The land has been cultivated, while broad forests and heaths are home to vast numbers of red and roe deer. My grandmother told me of her love for the magnificent, rugged place she grew up in. She’d been born in 1905, and she called Ulfborg “Uldborg”, or “Wool Castle”. I don’t know whether that was the west Jutlandic dialect, and its way of blurring what it really wanted to say – or the language itself trying to wipe out the wolf.

Dorthe Nors, a Danish writer, is the author of Mirror, Shoulder, Signal

This article was translated from Danish by Misha Hoekstra

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