Norway plans to cull more than two-thirds of its wolf population • Hacker News Board

Re: Norway plans to cull more than two-thirds of its wolf population

#21

Post by krona » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 3:00 PM UTC

jackgavigan wrote: post #15

This is sad. 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.

> This is sad.

Agreed.

Re: Norway plans to cull more than two-thirds of its wolf population

#22

Post by icantdrive55 » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 3:05 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #19

tn13 wrote: post #16

Why not allow people to buy these wolves to be kept in private forests ?

Wolves can easily get over a 6 ft fence. How would you contain them in a "private forest"?

10 ft fence.

Re: Norway plans to cull more than two-thirds of its wolf population

#23

Post by kiiski » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 3:47 PM UTC

tn13 wrote: post #16

Why not allow people to buy these wolves to be kept in private forests ?

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.

Re: Norway plans to cull more than two-thirds of its wolf population

#24

Post by ptaipale » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 3:48 PM UTC

tn13 wrote: post #16

Why not allow people to buy these wolves to be kept in private forests ?

There are no private forests in Norway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Norway

Re: Norway plans to cull more than two-thirds of its wolf population

#25

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 3:52 PM UTC

krona wrote: post #21

jackgavigan wrote: post #15

This is sad. 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…

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.

Re: Norway plans to cull more than two-thirds of its wolf population

#26

Post by semi-extrinsic » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 3:53 PM UTC

smackay wrote: post #20

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…

It appears in the local press that sheep farmers are mainly the ones pushing for this.

Re: Norway plans to cull more than two-thirds of its wolf population

#27

Post by ptaipale » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 3:55 PM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #9

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.

Re: Norway plans to cull more than two-thirds of its wolf population

#28

Post by MindTooth » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 4:15 PM UTC

Not our proudest moment..

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.)

Re: Norway plans to cull more than two-thirds of its wolf population

#29

Post by ObeyTheGuts » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 4:27 PM UTC

2trill2spill wrote: post #14

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 h…

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.

Re: Norway plans to cull more than two-thirds of its wolf population

#30

Post by sandworm101 » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 4:41 PM UTC

How many sheep do these few dozen wolves kill?

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.