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| Jonas Danielson, a hunter, and co-organizer of the Tinath Hunt, Swedish wolf territory, points out his guns. The group travels across Sweden for a month trying to take down large predators. Photo: Beata Furstenberg. |
The most crucial culling of wolves in modern times has begun in Sweden.
On Monday, Guardians accompanied 200 hunters to kill wolves in the frosty forests between Gevrevori and Dalarna, hunting from midnight until sunset at 3pm. The group travels across Sweden for a month trying to take down large predators.
On Monday, hunters surrounded an area they knew wolves had a lair. They let the dogs out, whose task was to seek out the wolves and drive them out the road to the waiting hunters, but with no luck, the hunters returned home empty-handed.
However, the dogs have identified some of the hideouts, allowing hunters to move faster in the future.
Hunters will be able to kill 75 of the 460 wolves next month as the government seeks to reduce population density in certain districts.
"We need hunting to slow down the growth of wolves. Wolf packs are the largest we've had in modern times," said Gunnar Green, predator manager at the Swedish Hunters Association, on Monday. told local news outlets when the
But conservation groups point out that Sweden's wolf population is relatively small, with more than 3,000 in Italy.
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| Scientists warn that large-scale slaughter would threaten a fragmented and vulnerable population. Photo: agefotostock/Alamy. |
They appealed the decision, which they claimed violated the Bern Convention, but to no avail.
"You get discouraged. Reports keep coming in that the wolf tribe is in big trouble, but [the government] doesn't take it seriously," said Danielle of the Conservation Society's Wildlife Management Group in Gävreborg. Ekblom said.
Marie Regard, head of the anti-hunting group Jaktkritikerna, said: Killing a quarter of the population through hunting hurts animals and nature. It's disastrous for the entire ecosystem. The presence of wolves contributes to the enrichment of animal and plant life. Human survival depends on healthy ecosystems. ”
Anna Karen Seserberg, Sweden's minister for rural affairs, recently told public broadcaster SVT:
"We can see that the level of conflict has increased and the level of acceptance has decreased," Sazerberg said, adding that the government has asked the state Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the recommended population numbers.
Authorities had previously recommended that the population not fall below 300. However, a majority of the Swedish parliament is in favor of reducing the wolf population to 170. This is the bottom of the range of 170 to 270 that allows the country to meet the conservation requirements of the EU Species and Habitats Directive.
Hunting is a hot political topic in Sweden and a powerful lobby can influence politicians to allow more animals to be killed.
“Even where wolves live, there is a large majority of Swedes who like wolves. In our opinion, the reason for these hunts is that there is a demand among hunters for shooting wolves. Hunter organizations have tremendous power in Sweden, the Swedish parliament has a hunter club open to members of all political parties, and there is a shooting range under the parliament. This sounds like a joke But it's completely true."
A group of scientists from Europe's top universities recently told the journal Science that no scientific advice was sought for this goal, which would threaten an already fragmented and vulnerable population.
WWF predator expert Benny Gaffwart said Congress' figure of 170 was "not based on any scientific fact."
"A level of 170 is too low as wild populations can have unexpected things," he told SVT. “There is a problem when it comes to wolf genetics, the smaller the wolf population, the greater the impact of variations in genetic status.”
Norway shares a wolf population with Sweden along its border, which poses an additional threat to the endangered predator. The Norwegian and Swedish wolf population, the Scandinavian wolf, is on the endangered species list, classified as endangered in Norway and severely threatened in Sweden. The Norwegian government has a very restrictive wolf management policy targeting a population of four to six pups each year. As far as is known, Norway is the only country in the world with a maximum number of endangered species. This allows hunters to significantly reduce the wolf population each year. Nature campaigners argue that this extra pressure from the Swedish government could make the species even more endangered.
Norwegian campaigners are battling a decision to allow such a massive culling in court, and there will be hearings next week, and they hope to win. could spread to Sweden, which is governed by the law of
Nature group Aktivt Rovdyrvern (ARV) said: There are currently around 400 wolves in Sweden and Norway, but this seems destined to drop to around 200 in total, with 170 in Sweden and 30 in Norway. This is incompatible with establishing and strengthening viable wolf populations in Scandinavia, both in the short and long term. ”
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