I’ve been floating the idea of getting a mountain bike and hitting the trails for some quality outdoors time, but after watching this I may have to throw that out the window.
A cyclist in Hoge Veluwe National Park in the Netherlands got the scare of a lifetime while out for what was a leisurely afternoon ride turned all out terrifying sprint.
While heading down a popular path, he starts noticing some sounds in the treeline to his left. Those sounds turned out to be a lone wolf who began chasing after him while he grinded the gears doing his best to get away.
Fortunately for the biker, it seemed the wolf was way more playful than harmful, as he didn’t get even near his top speed of 38mph, and the cyclist was able to get out of harms way with just a crazy story to tell.
Park officials have been worried about an increase in human/wolf interaction at the park, with numerous complaints and sightings being reported recently. Some local animal associations have even gone so far as to accuse the park officials of feeding and trying to tame the wolves, which they have denied, according to Newsweek.
As a way to combat this behavior, rangers have been instructed to use paintball guns to scare the animals off, hoping to once again instill the natural fear of humans in wildlife to keep both the animals and humans as safe as possible.
Paintball guns? I guess that’s one way to handle it, but who came up with that, a group of teenage boys who just watched Rambo for the first time? Is there not a better, more scientific way to handle the problem? I’m just a blogger so maybe I’m missing something, but I would hope people smarter than me can figure out a way to get the balance of nature back to equilibrium.
Very happy the biker is okay after this encounter and shoutout to him for having a GoPro strapped to him. Awareness of the problem is the first step is fixing it, so hopefully good will come.
Always keep your head on a swivel, folks…
