OLMHULT,
Sweden — Electric fences surround his sheep, two large dogs stand
guard and a neighbor monitors the adjacent forest from a security
camera.
Sometimes, said Ulf Ekholm, the proximity of wolves leaves farmers in this region of Sweden,
called Varmland, feeling as if they are under siege. He even has a
nickname for this lush and seemingly idyllic corner of Scandinavian
countryside: Predatorland.
Long
after dying out here, the wolf is back — and its presence is provoking a
bitter dispute, bringing with it the threat of legal action against
Sweden from the European Union.
Mr.
Ekholm’s farmhouse, in the village of Olmhult, is on the front line of
this battle, a conflict between tradition and conservation, and one that
pits farmers and hunters against environmentalists and European
officials.
Once
hunted remorselessly, the wolf is now a protected species, and its
return has provoked unease across Europe, from Finland to France.
In
Sweden, the wolf population is still relatively small — about 415,
according to the government, which compensates farmers for losses from
wolf attacks and subsidizes protective fencing. But farmers argue that
the compensation does not cover their full costs or make up for the
anxiety and disruption to their lives. Hunters, meanwhile, say that
wolves are killing the same kinds of animals that they like to pursue,
harming hunting traditions while scaring people who live in the
countryside.
The
issue is important enough to have featured in a TV debate among Swedish
leadership contenders before last year’s elections. When Sweden went
ahead this year with its most recent cull, of 44 wolves, it received the
latest in a series of warning letters from the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union.
European
officials say their job is to enforce laws that guarantee the survival
of rare species — rules to which Sweden, like other countries, signed
up.
They
criticize the way Sweden has conducted recent, annual, wolf hunts. They
say it has not satisfactorily considered alternatives and that it has
failed to show that its culls do not pose a threat to the wolf
population’s long-term survival.
The
government in Stockholm has until Wednesday to reply and, if it fails
to convince officials in Brussels that its measures are justified, could
be taken to court.
Few
Swedes worried when, in the 1980s, the first pair of wolves arrived,
apparently after making the long trek from Finland or Russia. Some years
later they were joined by a third, and then, in around 2007 or 2008,
two more, according to Magnus Bergstrom, deputy director of the national
environment division at the Swedish ministry of the environment and
energy.
But
that means the population here is descended from just five animals, and
is prone to genetic defects produced by inbreeding — a big concern to
environmentalists.
Nevertheless,
as the numbers grew, so did the complaints from farmers whose protests
prompted the government to allow in 2010 the first cull of wolves in
recent decades.
Mr.
Bergstrom said that Sweden’s wolf population was extremely well
monitored, and that culls targeted animals with poor genes. “We have DNA
from around 90 percent of the wolves,” he said. “It is often said that
this is the best-monitored wolf population in the Western world.”
That
does not reassure Per Dunberg, a spokesman for the Wolf Association
Sweden, who says that to be sustainable the wolf population should
number from 1,500 to 3,000.
“It
is a top predator and many other species depend on the wolf, such as
birds, and foxes,” said Mr. Dunberg, who accused hunting associations of
spreading alarm.
“The
hunters are telling Little Red Riding Hood stories; in fact, it is more
than 200 years since a human being was killed by a wolf in Sweden,” he
said.
Mr.
Dunberg, who lives in Stockholm, says he has received threats via email
and Facebook for his opposition to wolf hunts — though that does not
appear to have deterred him.
“The
hate against an animal, against a species such as the wolf, is like
racism in people — it is absolutely the same process in the mind,” he
said.
Camilla
Bjorkbom, president of Djurens Ratt (Animal Rights Sweden), also
opposes the annual hunt of wolves, which she says has caused “immense”
suffering. Ms. Bjorkbom said that in some cases it might be legitimate
to kill specific wolves, and added, “We need to work more proactively
with farmers and think of other ways to solve the conflict.”
But
in Varmland, there is growing frustration with the European Union. At
her farm in the village of Lindas, Elsa Lund Magnussen, argued that the
issue was partly about democracy.
“People
who live here and have problems with wolves should be in the process of
deciding how many wolves we can handle,” she said.
Ms.
Lund Magnussen said that the support farmers can claim from the
government for wolf kills does not cover their full costs, because some
animals survive, but are so traumatized that they never fully recover.
She
recently installed new electric fencing, and said that while most of
the cost was covered, the subsidy did not include the installation work
done by her family.
Still,
the investment is worthwhile. “If I get a wolf attack here I won’t have
the meat for my customers, and it will destroy my company for five
years. It would be a disaster,” she said.
Yet,
while the dispute fits partly into a long history of antipathy between
farmers and wolves, it is also about rural lifestyles. Ms. Bjorkbom
argues that the main motive behind wolf culls is the “recreational
interest” of hunters who are left with fewer moose to hunt because they
are prey for wolves.
According
to Gunnar Gloersen, game manager for the Swedish Hunters’ Association,
Svenska Jagareforbundet, hunting — an old and important tradition in
Varmland — is now under threat.
The
return of the wolf has had “a huge impact” on the moose population, Mr.
Gloersen said, adding that hunters shot 17,500 moose in Varmland in
1983, but only 4,200 last year — just a few more than around 4,000 that
were killed by the predator, he said.
Wolves also attack dogs used by hunters to pursue both moose and smaller animals like roe deer and hares.
Drinking
tea on the terrace of a neighbor’s house in the village of Nordmark,
Claes Goran Lindberg recalls how he lost a dog while hunting in
September 2008, and heard its last cries as it was attacked.
“That
is something you never forget when you hear your own dog crying out
like this,” Mr. Lindberg said. Two months later, the same thing happened
to another dog that had strayed farther while on a moose hunt. “I only
found the head and neck — the wolf had eaten the rest,” he added.
According
to Mr. Lindberg, concerns about wolves have spread. “If you have seen
some tracks in the snow, it is not fun to let your children go out,” he
said.
At
his farm in Olmhult, some miles away, Mr. Ekholm said that had he known
then what he knows now, he would not have bought in this location when
he moved here 15 years ago.
About
50 animals were killed in attacks on two nearby farms last year, he
said, and, in a recent week, his neighbor had spotted a female wolf and
two cubs on his security camera.
“We are waiting for an attack,” Mr. Ekholm added. “It will happen.”
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