Tag Archives: cattle

Fredrik Widemo: The Manifold Conflicts Behind the Hunting Industry

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Image Credit: USFWS Endangered Species, CC BY 2.0, Image Cropped

Rewilding is a tricky business. Bringing back species that once roamed a country as their native land may seem like a worthy cause, but it is often fraught with conflict. People don’t want predators threatening their safety, or herbivores destroying their crops. Rural vs. urban tensions come into play. Local and federal politics get thrown into the mix.

With that in mind, I sat down with Associate Professor Fredrik Widemo, currently a Senior lecturer with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Fredrik has previously worked at both the Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management (where he was the Director of Science) and the Swedish Biodiversity Centre. We explored some of the complexities behind the rewilding of wolves and its effects on the hunting and forestry industries in Sweden.

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Bringing Back the Wolverine

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The Swedish government changed tactics at the end of the 20th century, giving incentives to farmers when there were successful wolverine reproductions in their area

The Swedish government changed tactics at the end of the 20th century, giving incentives to farmers when there were successful wolverine reproductions in their area (Image Credit: Vojtěch Zavadil, CC BY-SA 3.0, Image Cropped)

Paying for an Endangered Predator Leads to Population Recovery (2015) Persson et al., Conservation Letters, https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12171

The Crux

Humans have a long history of driving dangerous predators out of their backyard. Wolves and wolverines have been driven out of different parts of Europe at different points in history at the behest of farmers looking to protect their livelihood, and the Tasmanian Tiger was driven to extinction for the same reason. But with the realisation that these predators bring enormous ecosystem benefits, governments have been searching for ways to bring about co-existence between predators and locals.

This study looks at a scheme introduced by a Swedish government in 1996, where reindeer herders had previously been compensated for any wolverine related losses. The new scheme introduced compensation for successful wolverine reproductions in the area. Persson et al. decided to have a look at how it fared.

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Bringing Back Carnivores

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Image Credit: Per Harald Olsen, NTNU, CC BY 2.0, Image Cropped

In my previous posts on rewilding and wild boar, I talked about the effects of reintroducing species that were previously found in Norway. Now, I want to talk more about the large carnivores in Scandinavia which serve as protection against invasive species. This opinion piece is coming from an ecologist and a foreigner, so treat this like a Scandic breakfast buffet and take what you want.

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