Residents find sleeping wolf in Doetinchem backyard "The animal may have been completely exhausted."

In Doetinchem, residents found a sleeping wolf in their backyard this morning. The animal has been sedated and taken away, and will be released later.

When the residents discovered the wolf, they alerted the police. “We received a report that a wolf was sleeping in a backyard,” says a police spokesman. “We went there. It was not a matter for the police and we were only there to provide a safe working environment.”

The police called in other agencies, after which the animal was anesthetized by a veterinarian and a wolf expert. Then the wolf was checked and taken to a veterinary clinic.

Previously spotted a wolf in the center of Doetinchem

Omroep Gelderland writes that a wolf walked this morning in the center of Doetinchem, not far from the backyard where the sleeping wolf was found. It is probably the same animal.

Silvia de Wolf-De Wolff was walking her dog when she came face to face with a wolf. “At first I thought it was a shepherd,” she tells Omroep Gelderland. “But then the animal looked at me and I knew: ‘this is a wolf’.” She went back home and called the police.

And that resulted in a special conversation:

Ecologist Glenn Lelieveld of the Wolvenmeldpunt confirms that the animal in the backyard was indeed a wolf. “It’s a bizarre story, I don’t have words for it either,” he says. “But it really was a wolf.”

Because there were concerns that the animal was injured, the wolf was sedated. “Sedation is not allowed just like that, but in this case it was the best solution,” says Lelieveld. “The residents and the police have acted very well.”

A vet checked the animal on the spot. “He did not find any injuries or striking things, other than that the wolf was completely exhausted,” says Lelieveld. “The animal was therefore not hit.”

Exhausted

It is not clear to Lelieveld why the wolf went to sleep in the middle of a residential area in Doetinchem. “It could be that the animal was looking for a place to rest, couldn’t find it and kept running until it couldn’t anymore and lay down exhausted in a backyard to recover.”

Based on the teeth, Lelieveld thinks it was a young, wandering wolf. The animal has been taken to a veterinary clinic where he can recover for a while. Then the wolf is released again in a secret place.