The wolf at the door — again

The return of the wolf has revived an old dilemma: how to balance conservation with the realities of living alongside a predator.

Photo by Milo Weiler on Unsplash

Dear Reader,

One of the delights of raising children in Germany is reading the Grimm fairy tales in the original. We own an unabridged collection which, amid the barrage of modern books seemingly designed to give children epilepsy, remains their favourite.

What becomes clear from reading them is that medieval Germans had a troubled relationship with the creatures lurking in the forests beyond their villages. Wolves recur throughout the tales — always sly, deceptive, and on the lookout for a child to devour. Stray from the path, as Rotkäppchen did, and trouble quickly follows. The children, fortunately, tend to survive their journey into the animal’s belly. The wolf, by contrast, gets his due: stones are placed inside him as he sleeps off his meal, and when he wakes, he collapses and dies a miserable — if well-deserved — death.

It is little wonder that Germans from the 16th to 19th centuries made such determined efforts to eradicate these animals. After the…