Sweden is allowing a record cull of its wolf population after almost doubling the sanctioned number of annual kills to a record 75 this year.
Open season on wolves began on the 1st of January and is scheduled to last until the 15th of February with reports that so far 56 wolves have been culled.
Hunting quotas are set by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and it is estimated that the wolf population is somewhere in the region of 460 according to the latest census conducted over winter 2021-2022.
Last May Rural Affairs Minister Anna-Caren Sätherber said wolf numbers were ‘too large’.
SVT reported that in 2013 the Riksdag (the highest decision-making assembly in Sweden) “decided that Sweden must have at least 170–270 wolves in order to fulfill the EU directive’s requirements for favorable conservation status.”
Sweden has had a complicated relationship with its wolves who are still seen as a threat to farmers with an estimated 340 sheep taken in 2021.
Sweden’s wolf population was hunted to the point of extinction in the 1960, but has been regaining in numbers in recent decades, notably the 1990s.
Wolves are classed as highly endangered by the Bern Convention on the conservation of European wildlife and natural habitats which was ratified by the Swedish government in 1983.
In 2019 Minister Eamonn Ryan called for the reintroduction of the species into Ireland saying he “believed that wolves should have a place in Ireland’s environment and would contribute positively to the ecosystem and the State’s national habitat.”
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