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SHEEP

Norway government to allow last-minute wolf cull

Norway’s government has enraged animal rights activists with a last minute u-turn which will means hunters can cull wolves this hunting season.

Published: 23 February 2017 20:10 CET
Norway government to allow last-minute wolf cull
Wolves are unpopular with Norwegian farmers. Photo: Heiko Junge / NTB scanpix
Environment minister Vidar Helgesen on Wednesday said he aimed to rush through changes to a bill in parliament which will open the way for a limited cull before the end of the hunting season this March. 
 
“This is no carte blanche too completely shoot down the entire wolf population,” he told state broadcaster NRK. “But it gives a greater flexibility than we have today,” Helgesen told state broadcaster NRK.  
 
He told the NTB newswire that the final number of wolves which could be shot would be a matter for regional and national authorities to decide “on a case-by-case basis”.
 
He claims the new policy was modelled on that of Sweden and justified by  “science, culture, economy, recreation and biodiversity”.
 
The announcement marks the latest twist in the highly politicised battle that began when the government announced plans to give permits for 47 wolves to be shot last autumn.  
 
This sparked a furious reaction from animal rights activists, who pointed out that with only an estimated 68 wolves living in Norway, this represented two thirds of the entire national wolf population. 
 
The government backed down under pressure, with the Justice Ministry ruling that Norwegian law forbade such a large-scale cull.
 
After the number of permits was reduced to 15 in December, Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, the leader of the agrarian Centre Party, successfully hijacked it as a populist campaign issue in the run-up to this September’s election. 
 
Rasmus Hansson, spokesman for the Green Party, sharply criticised the government's proposal, calling it the most “crazy” thing he had ever heard in Norwegian nature management.
 
“Now wolves have become an animal can be killed for virtually any reason. If one were to adopt similar criteria for hunting, logging and other natural destruction, Donald Trump would, perhaps for the first time in his life, be green with envy,” he said. 
 
The move was welcomed by Norwegian Association of Hunters and Anglers, however.  “This is what we have fought for, so we see this as a positive signal,” Knut Arne Gjems told NRK.

ANIMALS

France’s wolf population rises once again

France's wild wolf population rose again last year, with officials counting 580 adults at winter's end compared with an average of 530 a year ago, France's OFB biodiversity agency said Tuesday.

Published: 9 June 2020 16:57 CEST
France's wolf population rises once again
A woman holds an image of a wolf as people take part in a demonstration of several wildlife conservation associations, to protest against the hunting of wolves. AFP

The government has been allowing grey wolves to multiply despite fierce resistance from livestock owners, who say they are suffering from increased attacks on their flocks.

But this winter's increase was slower than the 23 percent jump seen the previous year, and “survival rates declined,” the OFB said, adding that the causes remained unknown.

Wolves were hunted to extinction in France by the 1930s, but gradually started reappearing in the 1990s as populations spread across the Alps from Italy.

Their numbers have grown rapidly in recent years, prompting authorities to allow annual culls to keep their numbers in check, though the predator remains a protected species.

READ ALSO: Where in France will you find wolves?

Under a “Wolf Plan” adopted in 2018, the “viability threshold” of 500 animals, the level at which the population is likely to avoid becoming at risk of extinction over a 100-year period, was not expected to be reached until 2023.

Wolves are increasingly spotted across French territory, from the Pyrenees mountains as far north as the Atlantic coastal regions near Dieppe.

But “there are still no packs formed outside the Alps and Jura,” the heavily forested region near the Swiss border, the agency said.

The numbers are far below those found in Italy, Romania or Poland, but they have nonetheless infuriated French farmers who say the wolves are decimating their flocks.

Last year, authorities registered 3,741 wolf attacks that led to the deaths of nearly 12,500 animals, mainly sheep.

The government offers compensation for the losses and has set up a range of measures to protect flocks, including patrols by “wolf brigades” in areas where traditional anti-wolf measures, such as dogs, fenced-off areas and 
additional shepherding, have failed.

That has not been enough to assuage the powerful FNSEA agriculture lobby and other groups, which say they have to wait too long for compensation payments in the face of repeated attacks on their livelihood.

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