We seem to have a pretty schizophrenic attitude to animals here in the Netherlands.

On the one hand, we have one of the biggest and most efficient meat production industries in the world. We have massive, state-of-the-art slaughter houses capable of killing thousands of chickens an hour.
We have more pigs than people and we see nothing wrong with building enormous factory farms in the countryside because that, we say, is where animals belong.
At the same time, we do everything we can to preserve an illusion of free, unfettered nature.
Firstly there was the captive breeding programme for the wild hamster which was threatened with extinction.
Then came the rage for highland cattle. You can scarcely put one foot into a nature reserve before coming across a herd of shaggy Scottish cows – not exactly native species but experts consider them very useful for keeping down unwanted shrubbery.
Last September, Amsterdam’s waterboard suggested that wolves and lynx could be used to reduce the number of deer in the dune area west of Amsterdam.
And now the forestry commission is talking about releasing wolves, bison and boar into a nature reserve on the Flevopolder. Wolves belong here, one official told the Telegraaf.
He is conveniently forgetting the fact that 50 years ago, Flevoland was under water.