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

#41

Post by marvin » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 6:12 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #25

krona wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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

#42

Post by kqr » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 6:14 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #25

krona wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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

#43

Post by digi_owl » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 6:23 PM UTC

marvin wrote: post #39

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…

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…

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.

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

#44

Post by digi_owl » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 6:25 PM UTC

marvin wrote: post #41

Dylan16807 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Also a cold war policy of being self-sufficient if shit hit the fan.

And i think farming did better until we started pumping oil, and the export of that drove the exchange rate out of whack.

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

#45

Post by zunk » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

https://g.co/kgs/6tfjQu A Little wolf-pro activism from Follow Him to the End of the Desert. Not Norwegian, but Swedes.

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

#46

Post by vsviridov » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 6:37 PM UTC

Damn, I imagined hordes of wolves roaming about, but then I open an article and learn that there's only 68.

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

#47

Post by scarmig » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 6:55 PM UTC

icantdrive55 wrote: post #22

refurb wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

10 ft fence.

And the wolves will pay for it!

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

#48

Post by maxander » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 7:05 PM UTC

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.

[1] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...

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

#49

Post by dang » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 7:14 PM UTC

labster wrote: post #2

Who made Anders Brevik the environment minister? 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?

> 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.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#50

Post by Tuna-Fish » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 7:15 PM UTC

dazzawazza wrote: post #10

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 ou…

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.