Wolves, Resurgent and Protected, Vex Swedish Farmers
By STEPHEN CASTLE

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: Predator land.

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.”

「狼來了」怎麼辦？ 瑞典吵翻

瑞典的野狼一度絕跡，1980年代才有一對野狼從俄羅斯或芬蘭長途跋涉遷居至此，卅多年來慢慢和後來的幾頭狼繁衍出如今總數約四百頭瑞典野狼，讓保育人士很開心。但農場裡的羊被狼攻擊讓農民擔心受怕，獵人也宣稱麋鹿被狼吃掉不少，政府想控管一下「狼口」，今年核准獵殺四十多頭，引來歐盟警告和保育團體憤怒。「狼來了」該怎麼辦，讓瑞典各界吵成一團。

在歐盟物種保護法規定下，瑞典狼群繁殖迅速。紐約時報報導，瑞典中西部韋姆蘭省的酪農如今是狼群數量增長的受害者，近年來在政府補助下築起通電柵欄保護羊群。

韋姆蘭省農人艾克霍姆表示，當地人有時覺得像被狼群圍困，他甚至自稱這個北歐鄉村田園是狼群「掠食區」。

狼群曾被無情獵殺，如今在歐洲卻是保育動物，不只瑞典，自芬蘭到法國，各地都對狼群數量增加感到不安。

瑞典政府統計，目前瑞典野狼約有四百一十五隻。瑞典政府現在依法向那些因狼群攻擊而蒙受損失的酪農提供補償金並補助設立防狼電網，但酪農認為補償金不夠彌補全部損失，也無法補償他們的焦慮及生活干擾。

獵人則表示，他們的獵物麋鹿被狼群大量補食，不僅破壞狩獵傳統，也嚇壞鄉間民眾。狼群問題非同小可，去年瑞典大選時，一場候選人電視辯論還以此為議題。瑞典政府從2010年開始批准獵殺野狼總數一成，今年核定獵殺四十四頭野狼，遭歐盟連番警告。歐盟執委會指控瑞典涉嫌違反保育法規，可能危及狼群生存。

目前瑞典狼群是1980年代以來，由五隻外來野狼近親交配而來，容易有基因缺陷。瑞典環境部官員伯格史東說，政府針對基因欠佳野狼獵殺，合乎保育原則。但瑞典野狼學會的鄧伯格說，野狼群數量至少要一千五百隻才能存續，現在獵殺還太早。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/world/europe/wolves-resurgent-and-protected-vex-swedish-farmers.html

2015-08-18．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯陳韋廷