That population would be below the level necessary to maintain genetic diversity. At least in NZ, the Kiwis have the decency to say that they want a species eliminated outright.
And before you downvote, ask yourself: Senseless violence to stop outsiders who are just trying to survive: is it really any less bad when the outsiders are animals?
> A Norwegian government team killed the fourth of nine wolves ordered felled in a hunt that has outraged conservationists and Swedish officials. ...
> Norway ordered the nine shot after complaints from local farmers of wolves killing livestock and pets, and wandering into farms and villages in a zone designated as wolf-free.
> Conservationists and Swedish officials have objected to the hunt, saying there are still so few wolves that killing nearly 10 percent of the stock is irresponsible.
"And before you downvote, ask yourself: Senseless violence to stop outsiders who are just trying to survive: is it really any less bad when the outsiders are animals?"
> Who made Anders Brevik the environment minister?
Whoa, you can't comment like that here. Even without that horrid bit, your comment is problematic for HN: we don't want overheated rants, and comments shouldn't go on about downvotes.
The kernel of a civil, substantive comment is detectable in what you posted. When commenting here, please develop that part and edit out all the rest.
Just for the record, I commented about the downvotes before receiving any downvotes. Mainly because I knew that people have trouble understanding that outrage is a part of civilized discussion -- and that making villains out of animals and humans relies on the same logical fallacies.
The only bit in the policy that you linked to is "Avoid gratuitous negativity." Is that the bit that applied here?
That and "please be civil". Naming the environment minister after the country's worst mass murderer is so uncivil that I'm surprised we have to have this conversation.
We're not interested in political rants on HN, so please refrain from practicing that genre on this site.
> I commented about the downvotes before receiving any downvotes
"Before you downvote, <rhetorical point here>" is just another variation of downvote-baiting, which the site guidelines ask you not to do. Going on about downvotes is in general a reliable marker of a bad comment. As the guidelines say, it does no good and makes boring reading.
Fair enough. I don't agree with any of the logic in the first part of your reply, but it's your website. The second point is right on the nose, though.
>That population would be below the level necessary to maintain genetic diversity. At least in NZ, the Kiwis have the decency to say that they want a species eliminated outright.
The Norwegian wolf population is a common population with the Swedish population. The total is something like 400 wolfs. (For the record I support a robust wolf population.)
On paper yes, in reality no. There is a high chance of basically trashing the national economy of that is spent, depending on what effect it would have on the exchange rate etc.
It's weird that they have just 70 wolves in such a huge country. Heck, how could they even count them when I would expect them to roam freely from Finland and Murmansk and back. Wasn't Norway mostly huge wilderness actually?
The count is indeed a very disputed number precisely because wolves roam across the borders between Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Those who suffer damages from wolves often claim that the number of wolves is actually much larger. Conservationists offer smallest numbers.
I don't know if Norway is so huge. Land area is about 300 000 km, for Americans: about three-quarters of Montana.
For thousands of years humans have farmed with wolves near by. The Japanese used to use Akita to fend off wolves who are looking for the easiest, lowest risk source of calories. Seems to me that the Norwegians should ask the Sami people of the region how they lived with wolves for so long while herding reindeer and maybe look at using the Lapphund to guard their herds.
Of course that may mean they would have to go out and shoot the wolves after the dogs warn them but that would have a positive effect on the wolves teaching them that they get shot if they go near the sheep. Culls don't teach the wolf packs anything.
That may also mean the farmers have to live with their herds which doesn't blend well with modern life so maybe we should scrap the sheep farming and not the wolves?
> […] positive effect on the wolves teaching them that they get shot if they go near the sheep. Culls don't teach the wolf packs anything.
Do canines really learn that fast? I have always imagined that it takes verbal communication of some kind to pass on complicated knowledge to the next generation, and most knowledge canines possess is evolutionarily passed on, which is a really frickin' slow process unless you intentionally breed them one way or the other.
The traditional way the Sami people manage wolves is by systematically killing all of them. The method they do this is that whenever anyone finds any prints on the snow, they encircle the area, laying a kind of "streamer" that smells like people (so wolves don't want to approach it), constantly reducing the area until the wolfpack is trapped in a small enough area that they cannot hide or escape and can be slaughtered.
The reindeer herding areas of Lapland have no wolves, and have not had any for any long period during recorded history. The Sami claim the right to kill all wolves on their territory despite environmental legislation and their endangered status as part of their unalienable rights as indigenous people.
It's amazing how low the wolf population is in Norway, 68 wolfs in the entire country! While here in Minnesota we have nearly 2,300 wolfs across 439 wolf packs mid winter 2016[1]. But that puts them only at 3.2 wolves per 100 km2 of occupied range[2]. That must make the wolf density and total range in Norway absurdly low, why would they "cull" the wolfs when there are so few.
Plus the wolfs are not really a problem here in Minnesota, a few people's pets have been killed, which sucks but thats all you really here about.
dude norway has no forests, land is all steap mountains fragmented by fjords, only in southeast there is little suitable wolf land, nothing compared to minnesota.
I don't think you have been to Norway? A hundred years ago Norway was significant exporter of timber (and no: we didn't cut it all down). Related fun fact: the Christmas tree at traflgar square is donated by Oslo (the capital of Norway) though I think this is a token of gratitude for helping us out during WWII, it's not by coincidence that it's a tree.
Most farmers in East Norway don't believe the official numbers on the wolf population, due to personal experiences with seeing wolves, and having animals killed by wolves.
I'm curious myself; I've heard separate stories of people in different regions seeing large packs of wolves (10-20 individuals) and also observing wolves crossing the road at night, etc. It would be nice to know more about how the official count as been made, because I'm skeptical that there are less than 70 wolves in the entire country. Large areas of Eastern Norway are largely uninhabited, and it doesn't really make sense that there are so many observations in populated areas.
Not sure if i can find the map right now. But i seem to recall seeing one showing the wolf related areas, and they were north and south-west of Oslo. Meaning that the wolf would potentially travel straight through the suburbs of Oslo.
Although the gray wolf as a species is classifed as "Least Concern" by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), the Scandinavian wolf population is classified as 'Engdangered'.
Instead of killing wolves, we should be trapping them and redistributing them to help ensure genetic diversity in isolated populations like Scandinavia's.
> we should be trapping them and redistributing them
European wolves routinely travel 60-80km a day for food, and since they are very social (pack oriented) hunters, a lone wolf (forced away from the pack, for what ever reason) can travel many hundreds of kilometers per week in search of other packs, new hunting grounds etc.
Meanwhile, Norway is full of hill farming in areas suitable for wolves.
I can talk about the livelihoods of people and families that have been decimated by the increase in the wolf population in Sweden, but instead I will say that many of these people would rather risk a jail sentence and hunt them themselves than try to convince the government to do anything about it.
78 wolves in Norway and 340 in Sweden? If you as a farmer can't handle one wolf per 28 thousand humans, I feel bad for you, but the lives of those wolves are more important than a slight increase in farming profits. This is not wolf life vs. human life.
Farming in Norway is largely unprofitable anyway. All West Norwegian farmers I have talked to consider it an expensive hobby. Most Norwegian farming is only economically viable due to government subsidies, which have a long tradition due to famine in old history and living memory.
It's not that they "can't be handled". It's that locals "handle" wolves by killing them. Authorities fear all wolves will get killed eventually, unless they are killed systematically and in an organised fashion.
The way I see it, it's morally equivalent to poaching. Sure, kill that animal if this is really the only way you can eat. Otherwise expect a big fine. And in a western industrialized country, it's generally the latter case.
Yes, and elsewhere governments have had some success with subsidizing farmers for predation losses. There seem to be lots of mitigation measures that could be taken before culling.
I'm not familiar with the details of Norway, but the Nordic countries have so called "everyman's rights" which among other things say that owners of forests can't restrict people from roaming in their (uncultivated) land. Building a fence around your forest would most likely not be allowed.
Bad for the wolves. But I think the wolves can at least be sold to the keepers of exotic animals or even sent to other countries which might be interested.
We need an international market (legal) for exotic animals.
This decision is probably for political reasons in favour of two groups within Norway: hunters who probably want to shoot more deer and elk or perhaps moose and the Saami who get paid by the state based on the number of reindeer they have roaming the tundra in the mountains and the north of the country.
Not sure if the latter is still the case. When I last visited the far north the effects of overgrazing by reindeer were starting to be severe in places. The densities of reindeer are pretty high so wolves would have a spectacularly easy time and would do very well as a result.
Regarding lost life stocks, this can be solved by having a herdsman watching over the life stock. But no one wants to work as such, and therefore they kill the wolfs instead.
This isn't about the business of raising livestock. This is an ideological hunt. This is killing wolves to make wolves dead. When in a few years they come knocking on Canada's door for new wolves, as America once did for Yellowstone, I hope we charge them millions.
"A recent study in the journal Science, "Trophic Downgrading of Planet Earth," examines how the near disappearance of upper levels of the food chain—big cats, wolves, bison and great whales—has altered ecosystems around the world."
There are ~200k sheep in Norway, about 1mil livestock total [1] and less than 100 wolves. Unless these wolves have devoted themselves totally to taking down sheep, the idea that they're a real issue is preposterous.
58 comments
[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 129 ms ] threadThat population would be below the level necessary to maintain genetic diversity. At least in NZ, the Kiwis have the decency to say that they want a species eliminated outright.
And before you downvote, ask yourself: Senseless violence to stop outsiders who are just trying to survive: is it really any less bad when the outsiders are animals?
Brevik killed Norwegians, in opposition to immigration. He did not directly kill outsiders.
This is not a one-off event. The Norwegian government has done this before. From 2001, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/killing-wolves-in-norway/
> A Norwegian government team killed the fourth of nine wolves ordered felled in a hunt that has outraged conservationists and Swedish officials. ...
> Norway ordered the nine shot after complaints from local farmers of wolves killing livestock and pets, and wandering into farms and villages in a zone designated as wolf-free.
> Conservationists and Swedish officials have objected to the hunt, saying there are still so few wolves that killing nearly 10 percent of the stock is irresponsible.
Yes, it is.
Whoa, you can't comment like that here. Even without that horrid bit, your comment is problematic for HN: we don't want overheated rants, and comments shouldn't go on about downvotes.
The kernel of a civil, substantive comment is detectable in what you posted. When commenting here, please develop that part and edit out all the rest.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The only bit in the policy that you linked to is "Avoid gratuitous negativity." Is that the bit that applied here?
That and "please be civil". Naming the environment minister after the country's worst mass murderer is so uncivil that I'm surprised we have to have this conversation.
We're not interested in political rants on HN, so please refrain from practicing that genre on this site.
> I commented about the downvotes before receiving any downvotes
"Before you downvote, <rhetorical point here>" is just another variation of downvote-baiting, which the site guidelines ask you not to do. Going on about downvotes is in general a reliable marker of a bad comment. As the guidelines say, it does no good and makes boring reading.
I don't know if Norway is so huge. Land area is about 300 000 km, for Americans: about three-quarters of Montana.
Of course that may mean they would have to go out and shoot the wolves after the dogs warn them but that would have a positive effect on the wolves teaching them that they get shot if they go near the sheep. Culls don't teach the wolf packs anything.
That may also mean the farmers have to live with their herds which doesn't blend well with modern life so maybe we should scrap the sheep farming and not the wolves?
Norway now is almost 100x that.
+ Roads, airports, farms, domesticated animals etc.
I don't know specifically about the Sami, but the aboriginals in most places did not domesticate animals or have any serious agrarian practices.
That said, I can't understand the logic behind this cull.
Do canines really learn that fast? I have always imagined that it takes verbal communication of some kind to pass on complicated knowledge to the next generation, and most knowledge canines possess is evolutionarily passed on, which is a really frickin' slow process unless you intentionally breed them one way or the other.
The reindeer herding areas of Lapland have no wolves, and have not had any for any long period during recorded history. The Sami claim the right to kill all wolves on their territory despite environmental legislation and their endangered status as part of their unalienable rights as indigenous people.
It's strange as they usually do - remember how humanely and thoughtful they handled the terror incidents of 2011.
Plus the wolfs are not really a problem here in Minnesota, a few people's pets have been killed, which sucks but thats all you really here about.
[1]: http://news.dnr.state.mn.us/2016/08/22/minnesotas-wolf-popul...
[2]: http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/wildlife/wolves/2015/survey_wol...
wolf relevant forest is tiny tiny tiny
I'm curious myself; I've heard separate stories of people in different regions seeing large packs of wolves (10-20 individuals) and also observing wolves crossing the road at night, etc. It would be nice to know more about how the official count as been made, because I'm skeptical that there are less than 70 wolves in the entire country. Large areas of Eastern Norway are largely uninhabited, and it doesn't really make sense that there are so many observations in populated areas.
Although the gray wolf as a species is classifed as "Least Concern" by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), the Scandinavian wolf population is classified as 'Engdangered'.
Instead of killing wolves, we should be trapping them and redistributing them to help ensure genetic diversity in isolated populations like Scandinavia's.
European wolves routinely travel 60-80km a day for food, and since they are very social (pack oriented) hunters, a lone wolf (forced away from the pack, for what ever reason) can travel many hundreds of kilometers per week in search of other packs, new hunting grounds etc.
Meanwhile, Norway is full of hill farming in areas suitable for wolves.
I can talk about the livelihoods of people and families that have been decimated by the increase in the wolf population in Sweden, but instead I will say that many of these people would rather risk a jail sentence and hunt them themselves than try to convince the government to do anything about it.
> This is sad.
Agreed.
And i think farming did better until we started pumping oil, and the export of that drove the exchange rate out of whack.
The way I see it, it's morally equivalent to poaching. Sure, kill that animal if this is really the only way you can eat. Otherwise expect a big fine. And in a western industrialized country, it's generally the latter case.
We need an international market (legal) for exotic animals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Norway
Not sure if the latter is still the case. When I last visited the far north the effects of overgrazing by reindeer were starting to be severe in places. The densities of reindeer are pretty high so wolves would have a spectacularly easy time and would do very well as a result.
Nah, this is a local issue in the counties near Oslo.
The decision is not even made centrally, but left to the counties.
You can bet your behind that they were leaned on heavily by local farmers.
Regarding lost life stocks, this can be solved by having a herdsman watching over the life stock. But no one wants to work as such, and therefore they kill the wolfs instead.
(My grandfather was a herdsman.)
How much do sheep cost?
How much does Norway spend on promoting tourism?
This isn't about the business of raising livestock. This is an ideological hunt. This is killing wolves to make wolves dead. When in a few years they come knocking on Canada's door for new wolves, as America once did for Yellowstone, I hope we charge them millions.
"A recent study in the journal Science, "Trophic Downgrading of Planet Earth," examines how the near disappearance of upper levels of the food chain—big cats, wolves, bison and great whales—has altered ecosystems around the world."
https://www.fastcoexist.com/1678282/humanitys-biggest-impact...
And more recently "... pups of predators in socially disrupted packs are more likely to prey on livestock."
http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2016-09-15/endangered-speci...
[1] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...