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For thousands of years humans have farmed with wolves near by. The Japanese used to use Akita to fend off wolves who are looking for the easiest, lowest risk so

For thousands of years humans have farmed with wolves near by. The Japanese used to use Akita to fend off wolves who are looking for the easiest, lowest risk source of calories. Seems to me that the Norwegians should ask the Sami people of the region how they lived with wolves for so long while herding reindeer and maybe look at using the Lapphund to guard their herds. Of course that may mean they would have to go out and shoot the wolves after the dogs warn them but that would have a positive effect on the wolves teaching them that they get shot if they go near the sheep. Culls don't teach the wolf packs anything. That may also mean the farmers have to live with their herds which doesn't blend well with modern life so maybe we should scrap the sheep farming and not the wolves?

jomamaxx 10y ago
The Sami people would have been about 100K population. Norway now is almost 100x that. + Roads, airports, farms, domesticated animals etc. I don't know specifically about the Sami, but the aboriginals in most places did not domesticate animals or have any serious agrarian practices. That said, I can't understand the logic behind this cull.
kqr 10y ago
> […] positive effect on the wolves teaching them that they get shot if they go near the sheep. Culls don't teach the wolf packs anything. Do canines really learn that fast? I have always imagined that it takes verbal communication of some kind to pass on complicated knowledge to the next generation, and most knowledge canines possess is evolutionarily passed on, which is a really frickin' slow process unless you intentionally breed them one way or the other.
Tuna-Fish 10y ago
The traditional way the Sami people manage wolves is by systematically killing all of them. The method they do this is that whenever anyone finds any prints on the snow, they encircle the area, laying a kind of "streamer" that smells like people (so wolves don't want to approach it), constantly reducing the area until the wolfpack is trapped in a small enough area that they cannot hide or escape and can be slaughtered. The reindeer herding areas of Lapland have no wolves, and have not had any for any long period during recorded history. The Sami claim the right to kill all wolves on their territory despite environmental legislation and their endangered status as part of their unalienable rights as indigenous people.

jomamaxx 10y ago

The Sami people would have been about 100K population. Norway now is almost 100x that. + Roads, airports, farms, domesticated animals etc. I don't know specifically about the Sami, but the aboriginals in most places did not domesticate animals or have any serious agrarian practices. That said, I can't understand the logic behind this cull.

kqr 10y ago

> […] positive effect on the wolves teaching them that they get shot if they go near the sheep. Culls don't teach the wolf packs anything. Do canines really learn that fast? I have always imagined that it takes verbal communication of some kind to pass on complicated knowledge to the next generation, and most knowledge canines possess is evolutionarily passed on, which is a really frickin' slow process unless you intentionally breed them one way or the other.

Tuna-Fish 10y ago

The traditional way the Sami people manage wolves is by systematically killing all of them. The method they do this is that whenever anyone finds any prints on the snow, they encircle the area, laying a kind of "streamer" that smells like people (so wolves don't want to approach it), constantly reducing the area until the wolfpack is trapped in a small enough area that they cannot hide or escape and can be slaughtered. The reindeer herding areas of Lapland have no wolves, and have not had any for any long period during recorded history. The Sami claim the right to kill all wolves on their territory despite environmental legislation and their endangered status as part of their unalienable rights as indigenous people.