NORWEGIAN hunters will be out in the woods this week shooting lynx 鈥� and
this winter they have permission to kill more of the wild cats than ever
before.
Norwegian wildlife authorities say that the hunt is needed to protect sheep
and reindeer. But the World Wide Fund for Nature says the hunt is not based on
sound science and could threaten the lynx population. The lynx is listed in
Appendix 2 of the Convention on International Trade in endangered species,
putting it in the second rank of endangered animals.
J酶rund Braa, a senior officer at the Norwegian Directorate for
Nature Management in Trondheim, says there were 鈥渢hree to four hundred lynx鈥�
in Norway when they were last counted in 1990. The population has grown since
then but no one will know by how much until after a census in the spring.
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However, this year鈥檚 quota is larger than any this century. In 1994,
hunters were allowed to kill 40 animals, and last year they were allowed 54.
鈥淗unters will be allowed a minimum of 79 lynx,鈥� says Braa. 鈥淏ut if we get the
impression the population is larger than we thought while they are hunting,
this may increase to 103.鈥�
Morten J酶dal of the WWF in Oslo says this is the biggest legal lynx
hunt in Norway since the 1850s. 鈥淭here are maybe 500 lynx in the whole
country,鈥� says J酶dal. 鈥淭hat is not a very dense population.鈥�
Livestock inspectors claim that lynx killed 5460 sheep last year and the
Norwegian government paid farmers 23 million kroner (about 拢2.4 million)
in compensation. Lynx also eat reindeer, and pressure from sheep and reindeer
farmers has led to the increased quota, says Braa.
But J酶dal points out that 116 000 Norwegian sheep died of natural
causes last year on the wild grasslands on which they are kept. Fewer than 5
per cent of these were killed by lynx. The sheep population has doubled to 2
million in the past half-century because the government subsidises sheep
farming.
In the past, most sheep were in the west of the country where there are no
lynx. But a poisonous lily, fatal to sheep, grows in the west. As the flocks
increased, farmers found it harder to avoid the lily so they moved into the
mountainous interior where the lynx live. 鈥淚f this is a reason for hunting,鈥�
says J酶dal, 鈥渨e will not be able to protect any predators.鈥�
The reason for the recent upsurge in the number of lynx is not clear. Braa
attributes it to the explosive increase in the numbers of the cat鈥檚 main prey,
the roe deer, as a result of warmer weather and larger forests. However, the
deer population could support a much larger population of lynx, suggesting
that there is not a direct relationship between the sizes of the two
populations.
J酶dal argues that the growth in the number of lynx may be part of a
natural cycle. He fears that if the population is reduced now, and then goes
into a natural phase of decline, the lynx could be in trouble in some
areas.