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Room for wolf comeback in the Netherlands A spatial analysis on the possibilities of settlement of wolves from European populations in the Netherlands

Cumulative effects of climate change, pollution, over-harvesting, fragmentation, degradation and loss of habitat threaten biodiversity globally. In Europe, centuries long over-harvesting and persecution of large herbivores and carnivores resulted in local extinctions of large carnivores. At the end of the 20 century, legal protection resulted in stabilization and even increase of the European wolf populations. Now, the public debate forms a challenge in the recovery of wolf (Canis lupus) populations on the mainland of Europe. In West European countries, it is unclear where wolves can live after centuries of man manipulating the natural environment. To facilitate nature managers and policy makers to prepare for avoiding conflicts, it is important to know where wolves will settle in the Netherlands and what routes wolves will take to the Netherlands. Based on presence of artificial surfaces, water bodies, human population density, road density and prey distribution and abundance, a habitat suitability model and a cost-distance analysis were done. Prey species were identified as all large ungulates occurring in the Netherlands: roe deer, red deer, fallow deer and wild boar. Although the Netherlands is a dense populated country with high road density, wolves will still be able to find areas with low human disturbance and prey, mostly in the northeast of the Netherlands. There is room for at least 14 wolf packs. Although the French wolf population is less isolated, wolves from France and Germany will most likely migrate to the Netherlands via north and south of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region. In a nearby area in the Netherlands a wolf was sighted in the summer of 2011. However, the large degree of plasticity that wolves show cannot be modelled. The areas where wolves can live according to this research should be seen as areas where wolves are most likely to settle first. To account for the left out parameters, the scenario is conservative. Therefore, the suitability for 14 wolf packs should be considered as an ecological minimum based on the parameters used in this study. In addition, when wolves settle in the Netherlands, the parameters of the habitat suitability analysis have to be refined.