NORWEGIAN WOLVES YEAR 2002
JointAction for wolves was established in 2001 after a government-authorised hunt where one of three Norwegian wolf packs was wiped out in addition to a wolf couple.
There have been many observations of wolves all over the country in the summer period of 2001 leading to several locally organised hunts. Hunting wolves without having tracks on snow is not very efficient and these hunts were without results.
At the end of 2001 a female wolf that was named Sno was attracted to the wolves inside Langedrag Nature Park. The wolf pack inside the Nature Park has suffered from inbreeding and the owner of the park wanted Sno inside the park in order to provide fresh blood to his pack.
The application for doing so was first denied and attempts by the authorities were done to scare Sno away from the area. The attempts were not very successful and the local community was putting pressure upon the authorities for a solution.
JointAction for wolves started a signature campaign in support for the wolf and the response was overwhelming. The solution the authorities chose was to withdraw the decision of not allowing the Nature Park to include Sno in the pack.
This was a solution JointAction for wolves opposed to together with other organisations and the animal protection. There are so few wild individuals left in this country that each individual is important in order to secure the existence of wild wolves and in principle it is not the right solution to put a wild animal behind a fence.
Additionally, the structure in a wolf pack would require
dramatic changes in order to introduce a new individual. Sno was tranquillised
and transported into the park before we managed to forward our protest
to the authorities.
Six wolves were killed in the pack after this decision where the owner
has claimed that this was done because of damages caused by inbreeding.
2002 started with a wolf killing a couple of sheep in a
valley called Gudbrandsdalen. An application for hunting was first granted
by local authorities, but was over-ruled and denied by the Ministry for
the environment.
Local farmers have threatened to hunt the wolf at Heidal regardless if
the hunt is legal or not.
JointAction for wolves have had people in the area in order to reveal illegal hunting. However, it seems like things have calmed now and the local community has accepted that the authorities have denied a hunting license.
A government authorised hunt similar to last years hunt was expected where the Koppang pack would be this years target. However, the tracking on snow has shown that there are only two wolves left in the Koppang area and the pack has been in the process of decomposing after the alpha-male was shot two years ago (maybe the reason why so many wolf observations were made last summer).
The alpha-male of the Moss-Vaaler pack has disappeared. The Moss-Vaaler alpha-male was radio tagged and one can just speculate and ask the question "how can a radio tagged individual simply disappear?"
The report from the tracking concludes that there are only 10 to 14 stationary wolves in Norway and no reproduction.
There will be no large-scale government authorised hunt this year simply because the situation for the existence of wolves in Norway is critical. JointAction for wolves will be concentrating efforts on revealing illegal hunting and to try and influence attitudes for a better conservation policy and tolerance for wolves.
