Wolves, sheep, and gypsies

July 21, 2026

Wolves, sheep, and gypsies

In 2012, the first Danish wolf in nearly two hundred years was discovered in the northwestern part of the country. Their numbers increased slowly in the years that followed, and by 2020, fewer than ten wolves were still being tracked. But then the population began to rise sharply: around 14 in 2021, 30 in 2022, as many as 80 by the end of 2024, and probably close to a hundred today.

At first glance, this is a heartwarming story. The wolf, in the abstract, is a majestic creature. It's great to see a species return after a few centuries of absence. You don't have to be a vegan hippie to find that appealing. But it's still a wolf! There's a reason why the last known wolf in Denmark didn't just wander off, but was shot dead in 1813.

Because as the number of wolves has been rising sharply every year since 2021, so too has the number of dead sheep. In 2021, it was 78, then in the years that followed, it was 162, 336, 521, and last year, it was 1,285! But the official line is still that shooting a wolf without a special permit is strictly prohibited because they're an endangered species, so maybe sheep herders could just try some more fences?

You don't have to be a statistician to see the problem here. When you have a surging wolf population, you'll have the rate of dead sheep following suit. If the only answer to the situation is "maybe try some more fences?", you're going to get more of what you already have: an out-of-control population that's an increasing risk to sheep, livestock, and potentially humans too.

This is the most basic consequence of inaction in the face of a growing threat: the problem just gets worse.

Cue the gypsies in Copenhagen, and their increasingly brazen behavior, after the city legalized overnight sleeping in parks and other green areas last year. Because "it shouldn't be illegal to be homeless", so the police refuses to act.

This has predictably led to these foreign vagrants setting up camp in the green areas around some of the city's metro stations to the great dismay of neighbors. The vagrants are literally shitting in the bushes, which obviously stinks, and the area isn't made any more inviting by the open-fire cooking that's also going on.

Copenhagen is the Danish capital. It's repeatedly been named the safest city in the world in recent years. Partly because it didn't tolerate vagrants and homeless people taking over public spaces (as has happened in so many American cities). Previously, police would tell someone they couldn't sleep or camp in the city, and they could go to one of the city-run shelters. But now that this is considered too cruel(?!), the native inhabitants of the city instead have to deal with literal shit on their way to the metro.

These are two situations cut from the same cloth of ideology. Whether it's wolves or gypsies, you can't just let the problems get out of hand. You have to act. You have to protect the sheep. Standing idly by while your livestock is devoured by predators or your neighborhood is taken over by migrants is a pathetic abdication of any functioning society's most basic duty to its citizens.

When wolves get out of control, you shoot them. When gypsies take over public spaces, you deport them. This isn't hard, it isn't cruel. It's the basic logic of self-preservation.

About David Heinemeier Hansson

Made Basecamp and HEY for the underdogs as co-owner and CTO of 37signals. Created Ruby on Rails, Hotwire, Kamal, Omarchy. Wrote REWORK, It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work, and REMOTE. Won at Le Mans as a racing driver. Invested in Danish startups.

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