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Bowing to pressure from sheep farmers, the Norwegian government has approved a wolf cull amid protest from environmental groups. According to Norway's Environment Ministry, wolves are thriving. As of last month, there are 12 documented family groups of wolves in Norway and Sweden, accounting for more than 100 wolves, according to the ministry. It seems whales and wolves fare badly in the unconscious of our Northern cousins .. and have to be killed in order to eliminate a psychic shadow. What else could explain the manic response to start culling a population of only 100 wolves! Last year, preventive measures and compensation to farmers for livestock lost to wolves cost the Norwegian authorities about $2.3 million. Even that sum pales beside the amounts spent to subsidise farmers in Europe. But the wolf, that is no ordinary animal. The two packs which live in Østerdalen, a narrow valley in Hedmark county, southeastern Norway, killed 612 sheep last year, says the ministry. On Monday, the Directorate for Nature Management announced plans to keep wolves and sheep from using the same land at the same time of year by a system of administrative areas. "The Government does not wish territorial pairs or family groups to become established outside the limits of the administrative area," said a statement from the directorate. "In such areas, arrangements will be made for hunting wolves under licence," it continued. "The aim of the management regime is to allow part of the Swedish-Norwegian wolf population to be resident in Norway, while at the same time reducing as much as possible the level of conflict with sheep farming and other utilization of uncultivated land." Under the cull, which begins February 10, a pack of nine wolves in Hedmark county will be shot by licensed hunters using helicopters and snowscooters. The directorate had been considering killing twice as many wolves. The cull is opposed by neighboring Sweden, which considers a wolf population of at least 200 as viable. "This is a thinly disguised way of allowing all the wolves in both packs to be killed," Rassmus Hansson, Secretary-General of WWF Norway, told Reuters. "It's a bad compromise." The Østerdalen region, home range of the targeted wolves, is the only area in Europe where four large carnivores - wolf, bear, wolverine and lynx - co-exist with their natural prey - moose, red deer, roe deer and reindeer, said WWF. It is the best wolf habitat in Norway, and also straddles Rondane National Park, one of the country's best known protected areas. Environmental group Ecoterra International called for civil disobedience to disrupt the hunt. "If sheep farmers and sharp shooters shall now be the government appointed managers of Scandinavian forest ecosystems, it is a slap into the face of the entire Scandinavian public and an affront against the international community," said Johan Schultze, wildlife biologist with Ecoterra. "It's not a hunt, it is straightforward killing and extermination of an entire pack of these magnificent forest animals, it is genocide," added Ecoterra spokesman Helge Hansen. Hansen called on flight controllers to prevent helicopter takeoffs and public exposure of participants in the cull. "No true hunter will participate in such a killing spree, which is against all hunting ethics," said Hansen. Whatever a `true hunter' is, cannot be defined, but culling wolves in the 21st Century cannot be defined as true to anything remotely natural.
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