Oostvaardersplassen: the winter that exposed a wildlife-management dispute

What the winter death count includes

During the winter of 2017–18, 3,226 large grazing animals died at Oostvaardersplassen in the Netherlands. NOS reported that 89 percent were shot because managers judged their condition too poor to survive the winter. Describing the entire total as animals left to starve misses the role of deliberate killing in the reserve's management.

The reported deaths covered December through April and included red deer, horses and cattle. The preceding October population estimate was 5,230. Those dates matter: the population estimate and winter death count are different measurements, and the total should not be treated as an exact census of every animal alive at the same moment.

The boundaries were human decisions

The reserve became the centre of an argument about the responsibilities created by its boundaries. Large herbivores were living within an area whose extent and population policy were human decisions. Severe cold, limited food and the size of the herds combined in a welfare crisis. Shooting weakened animals was already an intervention, even where the broader philosophy was to allow natural processes considerable freedom.

Members of the public brought complaints against Staatsbosbeheer, the agency managing the reserve. In November 2018, the Dutch prosecution service declined to prosecute. It said the circumstances arose substantially from nationally established policy and extreme weather, and could not be attributed criminally to the agency merely implementing that policy. This was a decision about criminal responsibility, not a finding that the management system was ideal.

The response to the crisis

The same announcement declined to prosecute people who had broken the feeding prohibition during the crisis, while warning that this did not abolish the prohibition. It also described recommendations for more shelter and fewer animals, intended to increase food availability per animal. Subsequent population reductions should be kept separate from the earlier winter mortality figures.

The central question was how to manage the welfare of animals in a landscape that was neither an ordinary farm nor an unrestricted wilderness. The deaths forced that question into public view. Accurate totals and the reasons for the killings make the debate clearer than a story in which humans simply did nothing.