WOLVES, wild boar and brown bears are moving west in Europe as nature takes hold of rural regions abandoned by people seeking work in the cities. Wildlife migration is shadowing human migration and, according to population experts, is set to transform the way we look at the Continent. Wild boar are already ransacking dustbins on the outskirts of Berlin and bears are startling schoolgirls in Austria.
Stefan Kronert, a researcher at the Berlin Institute of Population and Development, said: “There is a kind of suction towards the metropolitan centres. People are leaving behind the old mines and quarries, farmland that can no longer be profitably harvested, and they forage for work.”
Europe will lose 41 million people by 2030 if todayÂ’s birthrates continue to languish at the present level. About 22 of the 25 countries with the lowest birthrate in the world are in Europe. Poor but rapidly changing countries such as Romania and Bulgaria are undergoing a quiet social revolution. And in its wake comes the wildlife. |