Norway's claim that killing five of its roughly 20 wolves poses no danger is based on an argument that Norway and Sweden have a shared wolf population of a bit over 100 animals. Experts dispute the Norwegian standpoint, forskning.no, the web site for Norway's research organizations, reports.
The site published a series of articles on Friday that examined the ongoing licensed hunt of five wolves in Norway's Hedmark County. Wolf researchers at Skandulv (The Scandinavian Wolf Project) say that the Norwegian ruling has no documentary basis.
"Norwegian authorities have not invited views from researchers before the hunt and they have not carried out any vulnerability analysis themselves, which would have been reasonable. So they cannot say with authority that the hunt does not pose a danger to the (wolf) population," said biologist and Skandulv coordinator Olof Liberg. "This is a hope and not a professionally founded assertion," he told the site.
Liberg said that the ongoing hunt had destroyed two of Norway's three reproducing couples.
Norwegian wolf researcher Petter Wabakken at the University College in Hedmark believes the hunt has purely political motives.
"The problem that worries me is that Norwegian authorities believe it is fine to hunt a population with three reproducing individuals and claim no damage while Swedish animal management authorities, who must also be expected to have a certain biological insight, believe that ten reproducing individuals is not enough to justify a licensed hunt," Wabakken said.
Swedish wolf researcher Håkan Sand argued that the Norwegian claim had no direct scientific refutation either, except for one aspect. The Norwegian wolf population is now strongly marked by inbreeding, and the felling of an 'immigrant' wolf could have grave consequences for the pack's ability to grow and survive.
Skandulv researchers believe that the Norwegian-Sweden wolf population is already showing signs of problems due to a lack of genetic diversity.
Dr. Torbjörn Ebenhard at Sweden's Center for Biological Diversity was simply baffled by Norway's stance.
"I don't know how they reached it. They have shown no calculations," Ebenhard said.
The wolf is listed as a highly endangered species in both Sweden and Norway.
