Norway’s wolf population nearly doubled

The predator monitoring programme Rovdata released new statistics on Wednesday that showed that Norway's wolf population is thriving.

 

“This winter, a total of seven litters were registered. Six of them were born in territory that is more than 50 percent within the administrative area for breeding wolves. The Norwegian population target of three annual wolf litters within the zone is therefore reached,” Jonas Kindberg of Rovdata said in a press release. 

 

Over the winter’s monitoring period, officials recorded 65 to 68 wolves who remained solely in Norway, while 25 wolves were detected crossing back and forth across the border to Sweden. 

 

Last year, only 33 to 35 all-Norwegian wolves were recorded, while at least 40 were detected in the so-called border territory.

 

“That means that there were a total of 90 to 93 wolves with either sole or partial presence in Norwegian areas over the winter, compared to around 75 last year. The number of Norway-only wolves roughly doubled from the previous year while the number of border wolves went down a bit,” Kindberg said. 

 

Sweden's Environmental Protection Agency also presented new statistics on wild wolves and found that there are currently an estimated 340 left in the country, down by 20 percent from the previous year.