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Immonen, E., Husby, A. Norway wolf cull will hit genetic diversity. Nature 539, 31 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/539031a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/539031a
Steven Shackley
This is the same attitude in the U.S. Southwest that has caused a genetic vacuum in the Mexican wolf population, all to putatively save cattle ranchers herds, even though empirical evidence has shown that to be a fallacy. My bias is that Norway would be more rational. I guess H. sapiens are the same everywhere.
Yoav Kashiv
Steven Shackley made a good point. Some other points that the Norwegian (and US and other) government(s) ignores are:
1. It's unethical to kill wolves or any other animal.
2. Numerous studies showed that culling (which is a nice work for murdering) predators doesn't decrease predation of live stock. Non-lethal methods were found to be more effective. Ironically, live stock is raised also to be murdered...
3. Norwey is a very large country, so wolves can be relocated to areas where there will be less friction.
4. As in the US, the problem in Norwey is caused by farmers raising live stock on land where wolves roamed for millenia and the government collaborates with the farmers. The same approach lead to the extinction of wolves in the lower 48 states of the USA and has been harming the reintroduction of wolves for the past ~3 decades.
The plan to murder 70% of a wolf population of 65-68 individuals is simply outrageous.
JEFF D. UPTON
So 68 wolves are killing 9% of the sheep lost to predation in Norway! I think that this is nonsense. The idea that this tiny population of grey wolves is threatening Norway's pastoral economy is ludicrous. I agree with Steven Shackley that there are strong parallels with the attempt in the American Southwest to re-introduce the red wolf. This was seen by local rednecks as part of an scheme by the Federal Govt. to establish some kind of fascist state (yes, unbelievable, but sadly true-the paranoia of the American underclass is limitless). However, given the Norwegian attitude to international condemnation of their infantile insistence on their self-perceived divine right to kill whales, nothing else would surprise me.
Jean SmilingCoyote
Europeans in general have been at war with Wolf for centuries. Whatever else it has to do with, having livestock is a factor. Before Europeans traded hunting big game for livestock, they were not at war with Wolf.
Well, of course there are parallels with the war on Wolf in many parts of the USA: this is because the white people from Europe who created the USA and made their homes in this nation brought their hatred of Wolf with them. They certainly didn't learn this hatred from the First Nations peoples.