Google translation of https://web.archive.org/web/20130211040508/http://www.nationen.no/2012/09/06/rovdyr/ulv/jakt/rovdyrforlik/fellingtillatelse/7637759/
When wolves are released from zoos in Sweden to save the wolf tribe, something is wrong, says Deputy Director of Sp and head of the program committee, Trygve Slagsvold Vedum.
The wolf has been protected in Norway since 1973, but Sp wants to put an end to that. In a submission to the Storting program for the Center Party, the government party advocates free hunting of wolves in Norway.
With that, Sp throws a fire torch into both the red-green cooperation and the inflamed predator policy debate.
Also read: SV sees wolf proposals as out-of-date red-green politics
— There is no distinctive Norwegian-Swedish wolf tribe. The wolves in Norway belong to the Finnish-Russian wolf tribe, and a unanimous program committee therefore believes that Norway is not obliged to take care of this tribe, says Vedum.
He equates wolves that live in Norway with marten dogs and wild boars.
— No one is working to create their own strains of marten dog and wild boar in Norway, on the other hand, they are unwanted in the Norwegian nature. It should also be the Finnish-Russian wolf tribe, says Vedum.
Read also: Slagsvold Vedum says no to Russian wolf
He says Sp will help manage the populations of lynx, wolverines and bears.
— Lynx, wolverines and bears have not been extinct in Norway, as the wolf has been. All parties in the Storting stand together to manage the populations of these predators, including Sp, says Vedum.
Figures from Rovdata indicate that there are just under 30 individual wolves in Norway. An international research report from 2011 on the management of the Swedish wolf tribe estimates that there must be a minimum of 3,000 wolves in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia for the tribe to be viable. According to the report, there are 500 wolves in Norway, and thus more than tenfold the number of wolves in this country today.
— The so-called Swedish-Norwegian wolf tribe is characterized by inbreeding. When it is considered in Sweden to release wolves from zoos in order to add new genetic material to the wolves, it appears that the stock is not viable, says Vedum.
Read also: Will let farmer shoot wolves despite the county governor's refusal to fell
He says it is not desirable to build up the wolf population in Norway to 500 wolves, as the report estimates.
— The conflicts between wolves on the one hand, and the local population, grazing and outdoor life on the other, are so great that a choice must be made. Then it is better not to introduce a strain of Finnish-Russian wolf in Norway, which has major inbreeding problems and is not genetically viable in the long term, says Vedum.
The SP politician says it costs society a lot of money to take care of the 30 or so wolves that live in Norway.
— This money can be used in a better way in environmental and nature management. For example, extra resources can be put into saving the Norwegian mountain fox, says Vedum.
He says the wolf question would have been different if there had been a separate Norwegian-Swedish wolf tribe.
"Then it would have had value in itself to take care of a wolf tribe, as Norway takes care of other animal species threatened with extinction," says Vedum.
Vedum does not fear the red-green cooperation if the national meeting of Sp next year should decide not to have population targets for wolves in Norway.
— We are two different parties, which cooperate well in many areas. It is perhaps a paradox, but it has been easier to reach a settlement with SV than with Høgre in the predator policy. SV has in practice had a more critical predator policy than Høgre had when Børge Brende ran the Ministry of the Environment, says Vedum.
Read also: The parties in the Storting agree on a predator settlement
The reason why the Center Party can raise the issue of wolves separately in the program work is that the parliamentary settlement on predators from 2011 postponed the issue of population targets for wolves. The settlement states that Norway will cooperate with Sweden on population registration and distribution of border wolves.