Antalet vargar i Norge minskade med hälften sedan förra vint

Norwegian authorities have succeeded in getting rid of more than half of the wolf population in one year. Last winter 28 wolves lived in Norway - in January 2002 only 13 individuals are left at the Norwegian side (snow tracking is going on in these days - the number could be slightly changed later). The family groups in central parts of Co. Hedmark have successfully been wiped out. The Atndal pack was exterminated in February and March 2001 (all but one were killed with automatic shotguns from helicopter). The Norwegian environmental authorities succeeded in killing the alpha male in the Koppang pack in August 2000. This was a family group with more than 10 members, but after the loss of the alpha male the number of individuals has gradually decreased. Today only two wolves have been tracked in the area - probably the alpha female with one of her offspings from earlier years. In Co. Hedmark the Gråfjell pair repruduced last summer, but at present only the alpha pair is found in the territory (no tracks after the pups - killed illegally?). Further south in Co. Hedmark a radio collared female is staying in an area south of Elverum - representing the fifth Norwegian wolf in this part of the country. In Co. Østfold the pack in the Moss-Våler-Hobøl area had pups both in 2000 and 2001. Last autumn all contact with the radio collared alpha male (born in Sweden in 1998) stopped, and this wolf has probably been killed illegally. The number of individuals tracked so far in the Moss territory has been 8 - representing the only pack on Norwegian soil. In mid November 2001 a female wolf (probably 1,5 years old) turned up in the northern part of Co. Buskerud in central parts of Southern Norway. This was the first female documentated west of Oslo after the wolf tracking/research started in southern parts of the country in 1978. In December 2001 the authorities arranged for this individual to be placed in a wolf park - representing another loss of a wild Norwegian wolf. The number of intact family groups in Norway in January 2002 is in other words 0 (cero). In addition to the 13 Norwegian individuals there are some wolves in the border area. These Swedish/Norwegian animals are found in 3-4 packs/pairs - most of them staying at the Swedish side. In Sweden the situation is better, and a Scandinavian status report will appear when the first tracking period is finished. Norwegian authorities have plans for culling more wolves in Co. Hedmark this winter. First of all they want to get rid of what is left of the Koppang pack, and the same hunting methods from last winter are planned to be used. The strategy used by Norwegian authorities is all the time refering to the numbers of Scandinavian (Swedish) wolves - for killing individual after individual in Norway. The 1998 Norwegian - Swedish cooperating plan for wolf management has been broken so many times from the Norwegian side that it is probably just a matter of time before Swedish authorities resign completely. More than 50 wolverines were killed in Norway during last season. This winter (2001/2002) 50 individuals of this redlisted species are planned to be shot through the hunting period (licence). In addition several will be killed after special permissions. The last years hundreds of lynxes have been killed in Norway (more than hundred killed every year in a period during the 1990´s) - most of them during the hunting season in February and March. The species - also on the Norwegian red list - has now been exterminated in large parts of our country, and in the best lynx areas in Central/Northern Norway less than a fifth is left of the 1990´s population level. Still the authorities operate with a Norwegian lynx population on 500-600 animals, but the high hunting pressure has without doubt reduced the number of animals dramatically. The number of Norwegian lynxes is probably not more than 200. Therefore the environmental authorities do not want to give preference to research for bringinging the new figures up. Norway was the initiative (main) country for the Bern Convention. Today our authorities have brought the management of threatened species - particularly large carnivores - into a situation where this convention has little signification for the endangered fauna (if any). Not even the slaughter of the few Norwegian wolves - preventing an establishment of a population on the Norwegian side of the Scandinavian peninsula - made reactions in the secretary of Bern Convention. Viggo Ree