Parents seek help as wolves roam school route near Hee

Parents in Ringkøbing-Skjern Municipality are asking how their children can travel safely to school along a route where wolves are regularly seen, DR reports. The municipal council must now consider the issue.

Max Aaen’s youngest daughter takes a five-kilometre route through woodland and open fields to Hee School, a small village school. Although the journey could in principle be made by bicycle, the family does not feel safe doing so because wolves are frequently seen in the area.

“We are worried about whether our children will get to school alive and whether they will be eaten by a wolf. It is truly surreal,” Aaen said.

Aaen’s youngest daughter is eight. He and his wife also have daughters aged 14 and 16, both of whom face several kilometres to school or the nearest bus stop.

The family says the municipality has rejected a request for the school bus to stop at their address. The basis for the decision is that children are generally allowed to walk or cycle up to six kilometres to school.

Aaen works in Holstebro, making it difficult to drive his daughters everywhere. The family has no public transport and depends on the children being able to travel independently. The parents drive them when possible, he said, but cannot always act as taxi drivers.

Mayor Lone Andersen said she understood the concern but did not believe the municipality could solve the problem. “We do the best we can with the cycle paths and buses we have,” she said, adding that people should report wolves that come too close and are not shy to the Danish Agency for Nature.

Ole Kjær, a member of the municipal children and family committee, also said it would not be financially viable to provide buses for all children living in rural areas. He would prefer hunters to be allowed to shoot the wolf. Alternatively, he said, the cost of the buses should be placed with Christiansborg.

Experts estimated this spring that Denmark had about 49 adult wolves. They also expected all 11 wolf pairs to have produced cubs, meaning more wolves would be searching for places to live.

Jens Skovager Østergaard, head of office at the Danish Agency for Green Area Conversion and Aquatic Environment, said he understood why some residents were concerned. However, the recommendation is to continue using nature as before and to talk to children about what they may encounter so they know how to react if they meet a wolf.

Aaen has had that conversation with his daughters but doubts they could scare away a wolf if they felt threatened. “I have been to Givskud Zoo and Ree Park and seen the wolves. If there is one thing I would not do, it is jump out of my car and into their enclosure,” he said.