Hunter Lars Bjork pointed to fresh tracks in the snow as he lumbered through a whited-out forest in central Sweden, where the biggest wolf hunt in modern times is drawing controversy.
“We have quite a lot of wolves here, we’re actually sitting in a new wolf territory where we are now,” Bjork, a predator expert at the Swedish Hunters’ Association, said as he settled into a small hunting lodge a few kilometers outside the town of Vasteras.
Long known as a champion of environmental protection, Sweden has paradoxically had a centuries-long opposition to wolves, considered a plague in the 1800s, with the state paying out bounties for kills as late as the mid-20th century.
Photo: AFP
Still seen as a threat by farmers, the state now sanctions a limited cull of the animals every year.
This year, Sweden’s hunters are allowed to kill a record 75 wolves out of an estimated population of 460, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s latest inventory says.
That is more than twice the number that hunters were allowed to kill last year, and the highest number since the culls began in 2010.
A total of 54 wolves had been killed as of Sunday.
Several local authorities have already called off the hunt in their regions, and the full quota is not expected to be reached by the deadline on Wednesday next week.
Nonetheless, the wolf hunt remains a highly divisive issue, inside and outside the Nordic nation.
After Sweden’s wolves were hunted to the brink of extinction, the country declared them a protected species in the 1960s. Wolves started reappearing in the late 1970s and 1980s, before populations started growing in the 1990s.
As their numbers surpassed 200, Sweden began allowing licensed hunts in 2010, issuing quotas for the number that can be killed during a set period.
“The purpose is simply to limit the problems they cause out in more rural areas,” 59-year-old Bjork said.
For farmers, wolves are a menace as they occasionally attack livestock, primarily sheep.
They also pose a threat to hunting dogs, used to track and drive wild game such as deer and elk.
Sweden also allows yearly hunts of brown bears, wolverines and lynx — all considered endangered — to limit damage to livestock and reindeer. Reindeer are integral to the indigenous Sami people’s way of life in the far north.
All hunts have detractors, but the wolf hunt has been particularly acrimonious since its inception.
Opponents of the hunt say that wolves are needed to protect biodiversity, playing an important role as predators.
“It is astonishing that Sweden keeps on making these decisions,” says Marie Stegard Lind, vice president of Jaktkritikerna, a group working to limit hunting.
The hunts continue “in spite of the fact that the European Commission has been very clear about its opinion that these hunts are in fact illegal”, she said at the group’s office in Stockholm.
In 2015, the European Commission said Sweden’s wolf hunt fell foul of the EU Habitats Directive, and that the wolf “population has not reached a level that guarantees the conservation of the species.”
Other EU members with growing wolf populations have called on the commission to update its Habitats Directive to better protect livestock farming.
Swedish lawmaker Kjell-Arne Ottosson, vice president of the parliament’s Committee on Environment and Agriculture, said that Sweden needs to stand its ground against the EU.
“Wolves are a threat for those of us who live in rural areas. We have to manage that, we have to take this seriously,” Ottoson said.
The only fatal wolf attack in modern times against a person in Sweden was in 2012, when a captive wolf attacked a keeper at the Kolmarden Wildlife Park.
However, the issue often boils down to disputes over an acceptable size for the wolf population in terms of impact and risks, and ensuring there are enough wolves to limit inbreeding.
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency says that at least 300 are necessary to sustain a healthy population.
In a letter published by Science magazine in July last year, a group of scientists said that the culls threaten a healthy Swedish wolf population.
They said the stocks that span Scandinavia and Finland should be kept above 500.
Conversely, Sweden’s parliament in 2021 voted to cap the population at 270 wolves.
The Swedish Hunters’ Association wants to go even further and lower the limit to 150 wolves spread across the country.
The animals are mostly found in the central and western parts of Sweden.
“The wolf has a place here, absolutely, but not in the amounts we have today, and not in the concentrations we have today,” Bjork said.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Cannabis-based medicines have shown little evidence of effectiveness for treating most mental health and substance-use disorders, according to a large review of past studies published in a major medical journal on Monday. Medical use of cannabinoids has been expanding, including in the US, Canada and Australia, where many patients report using cannabis products to manage conditions such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and sleep problems. Researchers reviewed data from 54 randomized clinical trials conducted between 1980 and May last year involving 2,477 participants for their analysis published in The Lancet. The studies assessed cannabinoids as a primary treatment for mental disorders or substance-use
NATIONWIDE BLACKOUT: US President Donald Trump cut off Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba, strangling the Caribbean island’s already antiquated grid Cuba’s national electric grid collapsed on Monday, the nation’s grid operator said, leaving about 10 million people without power amid a US-imposed oil blockade that has crippled the already obsolete generation system. Grid operator UNE on social media said that it is investigating the causes of the blackout, the latest in a series of widespread outages that last for hours or days and that this weekend sparked a rare violent protest in the communist-run nation. Officials ruled out a major power plant failure, but had still not pinpointed the root cause of the grid collapse, suggesting a problem with transmission. Officials said that
‘HEALTH ISSUE’: More than 250 women are hospitalized every day due to complications from unsafe abortions, and about three die, a study showed Jane had been bleeding heavily for days before finally seeking help, not from a hospital, but from the man who sold her the pills meant to end her six-week pregnancy. Abortions are strictly outlawed in the mainly Catholic Philippines, forcing women to turn to a patchwork of providers operating in the online shadows. While rare in practice, Philippine law allows for prison terms of up to six years for abortion patients and providers, leaving thousands of Filipinas to search for solutions in online forums where unlicensed sellers promote abortifacients. “It was very painful, as if my abdomen was being twisted,” said Jane, whose
RSS