Norway - an extraordinary story

In the closing months of 2001 an extraordinary story unfolded in Norway, concerning a wild wolf and a zoo. During early December, a two year old, wild female wolf was seen hanging around the 10 acre wolf pen at Langedrag Wildlife Park, apparently attracted by the captive pack there. It seems that the zoo owner began feeding her and actually asked the Norwegian government for permission to capture her and add her to his own highly inbred pack to improve their bloodline. The government refused and the wolf quickly made itself at home in the area and acquired a nickname - "Sno". Soon, the inevitable anti-wolf hysteria set in among the local community with farmers and officials claiming that she was a threat to everyone and everything and calling for her to be shot.

The Norwegian minister of the environment, BÝrge Brend, was known to favour moving Sno out of the area but instead, the government made a few half-hearted attempts to frighten her away. A party from Sweden even tried using an ultrasound device to scare her off, all to no avail.

At first sight it may seem that capturing the wolf would have been a good idea but there are several problems with this approach, some biological, some political.

Firstly, although she sought the company of the captive pack, she would have no concept of captivity and if she was to be let in with the captive pack, she would either be killed by the alpha female, or live a life of misery as an omega, since she would be living with the perpetual, psychological disadvantage of being terrified of human beings. To get around this, all the captive females would have to be killed. She would then be alpha by default, but still living a life of misery in permanent fear of people (the zoo has about 80.000 visitors a year).

Secondly, for 20 years there have been accusations that the wolves in Scandinavia have been secretly reintroduced by the Government and/or environmentalists and are actually from captive stock. Some people still believe that, even though scientists have long since proven that all captive bloodlines have a different DNA from the wild wolves. Mixing the wild and the captive populations, could cause problems with disproving such conspiracy theories in the future.

Thirdly, the Norwegian public needs to adjust its attitude to wildlife and recognise that when a wild animal causes a problem, that problem should be dealt with by management in the wild, not by capturing or shooting it. Blurring the distinction between wild and captive animals will not achieve any such adjustment but will simply perpetuate the contempt and impatience with which with which wolves and many other wild species are regarded. Indeed, there have already been calls by anti-wolf politicians in Norway to 'solve' what they see as a 'wolf problem' by simply building large enclosures and herding all the wild wolves into them. This kind of thinking can only originate from minds which do not see the wolf as part of an ecosystem but see it instead, merely an agricultural pest and an obstruction to sport hunting.

Despite the above reasons, in late December, the government granted the zoo owner permission to capture Sno. This he quickly did - after killing all six of the zoo's existing, yearling, captive females to prevent the integration problems described above.

At about the same time as Sno was being introduced to life in captivity, the Norwegian government announced that it wanted to resume last winter's wolf-killing spree by targeting the pack at Koppang, which was, until recently, thought to number about 11 animals. The government confirmed that they would issue no warnings before starting the cull and claimed that the licenses issued last winter were still in force. They had also been in frantic diplomatic discussions with Sweden in the hope of heading off any repeat of the heavy criticism received from the Swedes during last winter's unnecessary cull in Rendalen. They also intended to use helicopters again, claiming that doing so wouldn't breach the Bern Convention since the activity would be a cull, not a hunt. The Norwegian government tried to justify its plans by claiming widespread public fear of attacks by wolves, both on people and livestock despite the fact a) there are only thought to be 30 wolves in Norway and b) that there have been no attacks upon people by wolves in Norway for more than 150 years. Additionally, a recent report published by the WWF in Norway, indicates that sheep contribute less than 20% to the income of the average Norwegian sheep farmer and that sheep farming is a loss-making industry which costs the Norwegian economy £70m (NOK 1.6 Bn) per year.

Then, in mid-January, the WWF broke the news that there in fact, are almost certainly no more than 13 wild wolves left in Norway; that none of the surviving packs is viable as it stands and that the pack at Koppang has effectively disappeared - thought to have been illegally poisoned or trapped.

This astonishing situation brings Norway's appalling record on endangered species to an all-time low.

The next act in this drama could only have been drafted by the Gods of ill-fortune. Already hated and on the verge of extinction, Norway's wolves then committed their worst PR blunder of the decade. On the night of January 20'th, a farmer driving home spotted an injured sheep by the roadside at a farm in Heidal. He got out to investigate and found a wolf in the sheep barn with four dead sheep and another four in various states of injury. He managed to frighten the wolf off and the next day the farmers in the area applied to the governor for Oppland for a permit to kill the wolf (of course!). The governor's department immediately refused permission but the next day, the governor himself over-ruled his own department and granted permission. That permission was itself overturned the next day by the state Department of Environmental Protection. The farmers promptly announced that they would kill the wolf anyway and have, since then, been out with guns watching the sheep whilst the environmentalists have been out with video cameras watching the farmers. This is the first time a wolf is known to have ventured into a farm and experts predict that the more packs are broken up the more often this may occur.

For more information:
Anita Neville, tel: 07768 721 170, email: aneville@wwf.org.uk
Rasmus Hansson, Chief Executive Officer- WWF-Norway
tel: 0047 9068 6313, 0047 2203 6514, email: rhansson@wwf.no