The government wants to facilitate protective hunting of wolves and reduce the Swedish wolf population significantly.
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency must investigate the possibilities for this on behalf of the Minister for Rural Affairs.
– I think it’s great. It is an issue that I myself have pursued for a long time, says John Widegren (M), member of the Environment and Agriculture Committee, to TV4 Nyheterna.
On Thursday, the government gave two assignments to reduce the wolf population in Sweden, writes Minister for Rural Affairs Peter Kullgren (KD) in a debate article in SvD.
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency must draw up updated guidelines for protective hunting of wolves. The number of wolves is now three times as many as when the latest guidelines were presented in 2006 and therefore they should be updated, writes the Minister of Rural Affairs in the debate article.
John Widegren (M), member of the Environment and Agriculture Committee, is positive about the proposal.
– The Swedish wolf tribe has far too great an impact on, among other things, food production in terms of the number of grazing animals, especially lambs and sheep. There are attacks every week, they are a direct threat, he tells TV4 Nyheterna.
Kill immediately
The authority must also investigate whether protective hunting of wolves can be granted already after one or a single attack on domestic animals or dogs.
“The government also wants it to be possible to track down and kill harmful wolves immediately after an attack. The Environmental Protection Agency should also investigate whether more aids should be allowed in order to quickly kill wolves,” writes Kullgren in the debate article.
The assignment must be reported by March 31, 2024 at the latest.
The second assignment concerns a tightening of the previous assignment to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, which is about analyzing the wolf’s reference value for a favorable conservation status within the range 170–270. Now the government wants the assignment to answer how one can be in the lower part of the range.
That assignment must be reported on 30 June 2024.
Favorable conservation status
The government has previously announced that it wants to see a sharp reduction in the Swedish wolf population, from today’s 450 wolves to 170–270. It is in line with an announcement that was voted through by the Riksdag in the spring of 2022, calling for the wolf tribe to be reduced to around 170 individuals.
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has previously stated that at least 300 wolves are required in the country, and that at least one new wolf that migrates in from Finland or Russia reproduces with a Scandinavian individual every five years, for the wolf to be considered to have a favorable conservation status.