The anti-immigration Freedom Party (PVV) has Highland cattle in its sights. According to De Telegraaf newspaper, the local party in the province of Gelderland has decided that “imported exotic” breeds don’t belong in the Dutch countryside.
The Gelderland PVV argues the Scottish breed of cattle should be sent back to where they came from. The same goes for Konik horses, a small semi-feral breed originally from Poland. Olof Wullink, a PVV candidate in forthcoming provincial elections in Gelderland, told a local radio station on Thursday that “our own flora and fauna belong here”.
A spokesperson for the Dutch nature reserves association (Natuurmonumenten) said the idea was “absurd”. The foreign breeds apparently play an important role as grazers in the Gelderland countryside and their native Dutch equivalents have long since died out.
(mw/ae)
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