Europe – Page 7 – See Animals Wild

May 27, 2022March 26, 2024

The Swedish government has decided to cull as much as half of the wolf population – why?

Wolf numbers in Sweden started to fall after a law in 1789 allowed commoners to hunt moose and deer, led to a lack of food for the wolf population. It is thought that there were no wolves in the South of Sweden by 1800, and they had vanished from the north by no later than 1900.

However, unlike the UK, Sweden is on mainland Europe. This means that countries bordering Sweden can have very different wolf policies – allowing wolves to naturally return. This happened in 1980s when 3 Finnish-Russian wolves crossed over the border and migrated to the south. These 3 (with occasional new migrants( has grown to 480, mostly in central Sweden.

Conservationists have argued that 300 wolves is the bare minimum for a healthy population. Those who study wolves suggest that wolves have a density of between one every 4.6 squire miles (12 square km) and one every 46 square miles (120 square km). Sweden has an are of 173,000 square miles suggesting a carrying population of between 3700-37000 wolves.

200 is therefore roughly 5% of the minimum carrying capacity of Sweden. Remember that most of Sweden remains heavily forested, and therefore perfect habitat for the wolf. These forests are also shared by 3000 bears.

What these numbers show, is that the current number of wolves in Sweden – 480 spread across roughly 40 packs, is absolutely fine.

The government minister did not give a figure as to how big she thought the population should be, but said that while Sweden must meet its EU obligation to not eradicate the wolf, she supported people “who live where wolves are, who feel social anxiety, and those who have livestock and have been affected”. Now it should be noted that these two policies are not compatible. For many farmers, the only number of wolves that they will be happy with is zero – they will always feel nervous with any wolves still staying wild.

It should be noted that the countries hunting lobby is powerful, and have argued that the wolves eat moose (which they want to be able to hunt) and kill their dogs if they get close enough.

I have experience of the wilds of Sweden. There is a Swedish bear hide listed on this site. Our visit gave us 6 bear sightings and a wolf, and when we went south to the centre of the wolf range we also saw some elk (moose) being harried by a wolf – exciting, even if the sighting was very brief. There is a great deal of money that flows into Sweden for ecotourism, and the potential of this is far higher than the money gained from hunting

May 25, 2022June 28, 2022

Global Warming Policy Foundation is being challenged for its charity status – it is not a charity, it is a lobby group for fossil fuels

For those of us who are sane, the Global Warming Policy Foundation is an embarrassment to the UK.

Its stated aims are aims are to challenge “extremely damaging and harmful policies” envisaged by governments to mitigate anthropogenic global warming.

This challenge seems highly justified.

May 19, 2022June 28, 2022

Wolf encounter in France (not mine unfortunately)

I have had an encounter with a wolf – perhaps 100m distant, and no reaction to my presence. I have also watched a wolf from the safety of a bear hide. I have even listened to the eery sound of a wolf howl, both within an English zoo (late at night) and more excitingly from all around when trying to see wolves on the edge of the Sierra de Culebra in Spain. Annoyingly, although our guides howl was answered from 4 different locations, on that occasion the wolf did not allow us to see them at all.

In France, with a wolf population (as of 2021) of about 580, unless you know what you are doing, or are incredibly lucky you are unlikely to encounter a wolf. Indeed even wildlife guides working in nature reserves do not normally see wolves every day. Here I will recount an encounter someone had in France.

April 10, 2022June 28, 2022

Saving the Persian leopard

Leopards once roamed through Africa and Asia and even up into parts of Europe. Now their range is diminished and many of the subspecies are either endangered or critically so.

The Persian Leopard (also referred to as the Anatolian leopard and the Cascina Leopard) Iranian Plateau and surrounding areas encompassing Turkey, the Caucasus (Armenia Azerbaijan and other parts of southern Russia), Iran, Israel, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and possibly Pakistan.

These ancient Iraqi forests are under threat, and with it the last stronghold of the Persian Leopard

Today it is thought that the population only consists of 1000 adults, though their population is highly fragmented. One of its strongholds is the Iraqi Kurdistan forests, unfortunately as much as half of these forests has been lost to illegal deforestation.

Unfortunately if the Persian Leopard cannot hang on here there is little hope elsewhere. Numbers have roughly halved (as habitat has similarly halved).

April 4, 2022June 28, 2022

We have bought a used electric car: does it make financial sense? Why should you consider doing the same.

So we have recently bought an electric car!

For any regular readers, you would have seen my article from a few days ago. When people are writing articles comparing the emissions from generating electricity to the tailpipe emissions of the combustion engine – any one with a brain is asking why? Given you are not comparing like for like. We estimate that our carbon emissions reductions from replacing our car may reach 10 tonnes a year. Each fill up of our petrol car meant about 40kg of petrol, which took 110kg of emissions to dig it out of the ground and transport it (often around the world).

So from an environmental position, yes it certainly makes sense.

But what about from a financial position?

March 15, 2022July 1, 2022

I am disgusted to be British after the latest move in parliament – hunting trophy import ban to be axed, but if we are ending the ban the British government must take responsibility

The British government promised to ban the imports of trophies in to the UK, yet they have given up after “wealthy peers” lobbied against the move and so it was dropped.

I have written on this issue many times over the last few years, as it was raised as an issue over and over again.

Should wealthy individuals be allowed to go and shoot members of an endangered species? I would argue no, never. However, we do not live in a perfect world. There are places where few tourists will go. If these incredible places can be protected by sustainably harvesting a small number of endangered animals I would argue that this is the lesser of two evils.

March 12, 2022July 1, 2022

What will the Ukraine war have on wildlife?

I do not know how many of my readers follow current affairs closely, though I follow them.

Whether the Ukraine invasion is to have a long lasting effect on the environment in Ukraine, this picture shows that at least in places the damage is significant

Are wars good for wildlife, or are they bad?

Unfortunately, it completely depends.

I suspect that on the whole, it depends on the wildlife in question. Several times during wars, it was thought that the European bison had been lost – due to soldiers having to camp in remote forests that they still survived. It is not surprising that soldiers with little to eat will take Bison that they encounter (one bison could feed a large number of soldiers). Indeed, it is certainly the case that many herbivores have been lost in this way.

Other species are different.

Mountain gorillas multiplied greatly during the period of the civil war. In similar ways, the Iron curtain that crossed Europe – along the edge of the Soviet Union, had a no mans land on either side of the barrier. This Green belt which ran for thousands of km across Europe, while not wide was never-the-less wide enough for animals to use. Indeed, it is thought that wolves and bears used this route as a highway – allowing them to recolonise land they had been exterminated from.

So, what do we think? Well, partly it depends on how long the war goes on. At the current time, it does not look like Russia will be able to last for long enough for this to have any big effect. If instead this was to go on for years, it might be a very different thing. This is because Ukraine lies between the Eastern Europe and the Carpathians, and the west. Should hunting in Ukraine cease for a few years, it is likely to accelerate the movement of wolves and bears and lynx from east to west. This process is likely to happen over time anyway, but a protracted war could accelerate it.

As I said above, though, it is highly likely that this conflict will not last long.

March 11, 2022June 28, 2022

Return of the bear wolf and lynx to France and western Europe

The recovery of wolves bears and lynx over the last several generations in western Europe has been nothing short of astounding.

In the 1960s the population of the iberian wolf did not number more than a few hundred, yet now there are 2500. Similarly, bears got very low but now more than 300 roam – though this still has some way to go. The Iberian lynx was not heavily hunted, yet was still almost wiped out due to human introduced diseases wiping out most of the rabbits in Spain.

France destroyed its wolf population completely, though they are back, having crossed from Italy about 20-30 years ago. Bears were similarly almost wiped out, except a tiny relict population in the Pyrenes. Unfortunately, this population has not done well and is essentially only there because of bear translocations from further east. Similarly, Lynx were eradicated by 1900 though this has been reversed by reintroduction projects. There are a couple of zones where lynx are found (a reintroduction project in Switzerland returned them to part of france), However, there is not going to be more than 130 lynx in the whole country and the population does not seem to be growing.

Italy retained a wolf population, though in the 1970s there was only 70-100 left. Nowadays, 1000-2000 wolves roam the country, and it is roaming members of this population that seeded the population in France. 80-90 bears remain in Italy (the Marsican bear), and while this is a more healthy population than that in France, it is still not enough to be secure. Lynx were eradicated but have been reintroduced, though they are not thought to have established a population that would be secure longterm without continued translocations.

Scandinavia could in some ways be thought of as a strong-point for all three animals in western-Europe, though there are still views that are not helpful. The encouraging thing here, is that the wolf is able to return from Russia. There are no more than 500 wolves in this area, and Norway has a relatively strange view of the wolf, with human hunting elk very popular, wolves are seen as a nuisance and kept at a minimum. Norway has a similar view of the bear, with them being far more common in Sweden. Lynx are widespread in this part of the world.

Why should we champion the return of these animals? They have the capacity to rebalance environments, as well as allowing forests to operate properly – in the UK, as we are missing these predators, replanting forests are often hindered by deer grazing them to much. There are other reasons though. These animals can be a big tourist draw, allowing people to make a good income, often in places where there is little other economic potential. In the UK, return of wolves and lynx would save hundreds of human lives each year by reducing deer collisions on our roads.

Will their recovery continue? I hope so, though it seems to very much be an area where progress is two steps forwards and one step back.

March 6, 2022June 28, 2022

The British government has promised to go carbon neutral by 2050 how much to generate all electricity from wind?

How can we produce all our electricity through wind and solar? These are the two most wide-spread possibilities in terms of green electricity generation. It has been calculated, that in order to power all UK homes from wind, we need funding of 50 billion.

Now while this number is huge, the British government spent over a trillion pounds last year. This means that the investment required to generate 100% of our power from wind is about 5% of one years spending. This strikes me as incredibly cheap. This investment, would allow about 4 times as many turbines to be added as there currently are.

There would obviously be other costs, such as storing electricity for when the wind is not blowing. The important take away, is that this is negligible. Indeed with debts of over 3000 billion, adding 50 more is not a big step.

More importantly, it is calculated that doing nothing could cost the UK alone trillions of pounds. If we invested this money over the next say 8 years (so that all the money was available by 2030 and all the turbines were up and running by 2035) it becomes quite a small investment in government spending terms (though it is still a large amount of money).

It is estimated that by 2050 climate change could cost the UK up to £20 billion a year. Of course other countries around the world will likely have to pay far more. The UK has the 12th highest electricity use in the world as a country, this means that while each country will need a lot of money to go fully green electricity, it is not necessary to break the bank.

Different countries will have different ways to reach net zero, and we should help and encourage this move – but why dont we start planning the necessary investment, make sure that the UK leads the way in eliminating our electrical carbon footprint?

March 5, 2022June 28, 2022

Carbon footprint of the UK ghost flights during Covid

What are ghost flights?

These are flights that are totally empty. These flights took place because airports demanded that a certain percentage of take-off slots were filled in order for each company to retain ownership.

Why is this problematic?

The Average plane emits about 53 pounds of carbon per mile, and flies on average 500 miles. As a result, the average flight emits roughly 25000 pounds of carbon per flight. Roughly speaking, an empty plane uses 20% less fuel, so we can say that each ghost flight emitted roughly 10 tonnes of carbon. Over the 15,000 flights that flew empty, that is 150,000 tonnes of carbon – with no purpose except allowing airports to keep raking in the profits.

At a time when we are all trying to cut carbon emissions this is horrendous. Is it a large portion of our countries annual emissions? no, it is less than 1%. However, at a time when everyone is being encouraged to reduce their carbon footprint as much as possible this is an absurd waste.

Alarmingly, ghost flights are not only a British thing in many countries around the world they have been a far bigger thing. What is worse, is that this was belatedly recognized by the EU reducing requirements temporarily in the middle of the epidemic.

Things must change – if in the future we have an epidemic which reduces passengers flying to zero, we must also have a reduction in the emissions and flights to zero as well.