p2pnet news view | Off Topic:- More than 12,000 hunters signed up to kill 27 wolves in Sweden as part of the country’s first “culling” in almost half a century.

“It is good start”, Stockholm News has Kenneth Holmström, “sheep farmer and forest owner from Brattfors in the Värmland province”, saying.

“But we need to shoot more to get the wolf population under control. My feeling is that there is a lot more wolves in Sweden than the authorities admit”.

However, the hunt was “totally out of control, the quota was even exceeded in Dalarna, and thousands of hunters were allowed to take part in the kill,” The Local has Mikael Karlsson, head of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC), declaring.

He’s now filed a complaint against Sweden with the European Commission, says the story. “This hunt was aimed at pleasing the loudmouthed hunters”, he said.

“The last two wolfs shot were probably the alpha couple which means that there could now be orphaned puppies,” says Stockholm News, continuing, “Last year’s puppies can have difficulties coping without the parental animals, who teach them to trap prey. That means the puppies are at risk of starving to death or increases the risk that they will start attack cattle.”

Fresh snow made it easier for hunters to track the animal, says The Local, noting:

“Several hunters have filed police complaints after receiving anonymous death threats, the Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management said.”

It adds >>>

Wolves had virtually disappeared from Sweden in the 1970s. They have thrived since being reintroduced but suffer from the effects of inbreeding because they all descend from the same handful of animals that were introduced.

The government plans to release some 20 new wolves into the wild by 2014 to broaden their gene pool and improve their health.

“If the environment minister’s real aim was to combat the wolves’ heart, back and kidney problems then the hunt would have been organised differently,” the paper wrote.

Parliament’s decision to allow the wolf hunt was aimed at increasing public acceptance of the predators.

The animal’s presence is controversial in the country as domestic and farm animals are increasingly attacked by wolves, which have been sighted recently near residential areas, including near the capital Stockholm.

Oscar Wilde once described fox hunting as “the unspeakable in full pursuit of the inedible.”

Follow p2pnet on Twitter …

..… and identi.ca

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Stockholm News – Wolf hunt raises mixed feelings, January 2, 2010
The Local – Criticism soars as Sweden’s wolf hunt ends, January 7, 2010

---

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

---

Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Off Topic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

HOME

Viewed 5332 times