Sweden ’s annual brownbear huntkicked off on Wednesday , with over 150 bear killed in the opening days . The country ’s regime has approved the violent death of 486 brown bear – 20 percent of the wild population – between August 21 and October 15 .
By Thursday afternoon , less than two days in , 152 had already been shoot , Sweden ’s Environmental Protection Agency announced . Thecullgoes against the bear ’s condition as a “ strictly protect species ” within the European Union , and conservationist are clearly outraged .
Truls Gulowsen , head of the Norse Nature Conservation Organisation , toldThe Guardianthey were “ very concerned with this culling ” .
“ It ’s a significant and quite dramatic reducing of the Scandinavian brown bear universe . Now that Sweden is seriously diminish its strain , it will impact the survivability of the intact Norse population . ”
Brown bears were hunted to the brink of quenching in Sweden at the beginning of the last century , but their number have since find . They reached a peak of almost 3,300 in 2008 , and as of last class , there were anestimated2,450 .
“ 100 years of brown bear preservation progression in Sweden is right now being undone at an alarming speed , ” write Sweden ’s “ Big Five ” carnivore protection project in astatement .
The project claims the government is “ on a clean path ” to cull the bear population to 1,400 – the minimum number of bears needed to uphold a practicable universe .
Last year , 648 bears were fool during “ licensed quota hunting ” and a further 74 were stamp out during so - called “ protective hunting ” – a sum of 722 dead bears .
“ We can absolutely not continue to shoot this many bear if we are to have a stable bear population around the 2,400 bear we have today , ” Jonas Kindberg , drawing card of the Norse Bear Project scat by the Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences and the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research , added .
As well as being prejudicial to the brownish bear universe , the cull will have ramification for the rest of the ecosystem . lose a top predatory animal , also make love to help seminal fluid dispersal , could negatively impact a figure of dissimilar mintage .
It ’s not just bears that have faced universe ascendance measures in Sweden . In 2023 , the Scandinavian country approved the largest wolf cull in modern history , before announcing the defeat ofhundreds of lynxesjust weeks afterward .
This year , for the first fourth dimension , police willaccompany huntersin anticipation of protests as arguing surrounding the cull continues to climb .
