First of all, thanks to Perolav for assuring that we have a variety of opinions about this situation expressed on the forum.
Thanks also to Tonje for her careful analysis of the situation in Norway. As in every issue there are two sides in this argument. Perhaps the one thing that I still wonder about is who actually authorizes these wolf hunts. I have the feeling that the local as opposed to the national authorities organizes them. Local politicians will be looking to cater to the local people, that is the farmers, rather than to the majority opinion in the country.
I would dare to look at the behaviour of the wolf a little more carefully… and to think that men ought to learn better how to live with this predator.
You point out the fact that wolves kill in a savage way that often results in the maiming of the sheep. Disembowelment is not a pretty thing. However, from the point of view of the wolf it is efficient.
It has been observed in the wild, that wolves may on occasion kill more prey than they can comfortably feed on in a given moment. Some have seen this behaviour as showing that the wolf is a vicious and wasteful predator – this however is not the case, the wolves will inerrably return to the kill and feed again till the prey is consumed. Unfortunately farmers never give the wolves this chance, thus the wolves come, kill a sheep, the farmer retrieves the carcass and when he returns the wolf kills again, a wasteful exercise both for man and wolf.
Then there are the ways in which one can protect a flock from sheep. One rather interesting technique is the use of so called livestock guarding dogs (LGD). This has been tried in Norway though interestingly the main problem were bears, lynx, foxes and wolverines, not wolves.
I have always found the argument of farmers fighting for their livelihood against the wolves to be not quite correct, at least in areas (such as most of Norway) where farmers are compensated for wolf kills. Of course, there may be kills which cannot be clearly established as wolf kills and there may be some loss of revenue to the farmer because of this, but there is bound to be a loss of animals in any such exploitation, be it to predators, accidents or disease.
Unfortunately the problem of predation by the wolf is not the issue here. If predation was the real issue, then you would be hearing of great programs to manage bear and lynx populations which seem to be the true predators on the Norwegian herds, with wolves representing only a small fractions of the kills caused by other predators.
The issue here is the legend of the wolf, the primeval fear that seems to have been burned into the collective psyche or mankind. It is not merely a coincidence that Norway is the home of many legends, one of which is that of Fenris, chained forever by Gleipnir but only after having severed the hand of Tyr… Forever the symbol of evil vanquished at a great price. That is the reason why logic and arguments do not really work against fear. Logically one cannot expect the wolf population of Norway to pose any real threat to herding activities on a national scale (though admittedly individual herds may be affected – hence the importance of the compensation regime by the government) But that simply is not the point here.
How does one reverse this trend? Well not in one or two years, this is the work of generations, and I find it very encouraging that Tonje pointed out that the younger generations, even in the countryside tend to be more in favour of protecting the wolf.
Unfortunately, that sort of timescale is simply not available. With a very small population the Scandinavian wolf is perilously close to extinction, Only a few hundred individuals remain, mainly in Sweden.
So what can be done? Certainly there is pressure which is mounting in Norway to protect the wolves, in fact the government has been taken to court over the killing of six wolves earlier this year. Expressions of concern to Norwegian authorities (be they to the various Norwegian public officials, or to the Norwegian embassies in our various countries) are unlikely to have a major effect.
Perhaps more effective would be the drawing of international censure upon Norway. After all many other countries in Europe are going on with wolf conservation programs, including Sweden. These countries do so often with less resources than Norway, it would be perhaps adequate to remind the Norwegian authorities of their responsibility under the various international agreements which they have signed, which include the protection of the wolf.
I would recommend writing to the members of the European parliament about this issue – you may be surprised how effective this can be. You can find out how to do this here:
www.europarl.eu.int