Sweden will kill 20 percent of its bears during the hunting season

The hunting season in Sweden involves the killing of almost 500 brown bears, reducing the population by 40% compared to 2008.

Not only the province of Trento with thebear Kj1:now Sweden has also decided to grant licenses for cull 20 percent of its brown bear population.Of course, in the Scandinavian country - unlike Italy - there is a hunting season in which the bear is considered prey:it's always been like this.But this year they will be kicked out approximately 500 copies:a number considered too high by associations involved in the defense of animals and biodiversity, since at the end of the hunting season the bear population it will be reduced to just 2,000 individuals, marking a decline of 40 percent compared to 2008.

“Wildlife management in Sweden boils down to culling animals instead of preserving them as best as possible,” he said Guardian Magnus Orrebrant, president of the Swedish carnivore association, an organization that promotes a society in which people and carnivores can coexist in Sweden, as highlighted on the their website.“It's pure trophy hunting,” adds Orrebrant, warning that the high number of licenses issued could lead to collapse of large predator populations in Europe.

2023 was the record year for bear killing in Sweden

Brown bears were almost exterminated in Sweden in the 1920s, and it took almost a hundred years of controlled management to bring them back to 3,300 in 2008.However, in the last five years, the number of hunting licenses issued has increased:last year a record was recorded with the killing of 722 bears.

Licenses have been granted to cull 486 bears this year, but a further undetermined number could be killed if deemed a threat to livestock or humans.Additionally, in November 2022, a new law gave local hunting associations greater powers to manage large predators, including bears.Finally, in recent years hundreds of wolves and lynxes have been killed, raising concerns from environmentalists.

The Swedish bear will go the way of the moose

The minimum number considered vital for a bear population is 1,400 specimens.At this rate, this critical threshold could be reached in just two years.Despite this, the brown bear is a "strictly protected" species in Europe and conservationists argue that the high hunting quotas violate the European Habitats Directive, which prohibits "the deliberate hunting or killing of strictly protected species."

Under EU rules, this ban can only be suspended as a “last resort” to protect public safety, crops or natural flora and fauna.Researchers fear that the brown bear may follow the same fate as the moose population in Sweden, which has decreased by 60 percent since the end of the last century.Orrebrant observes that bears are moving ever closer to human settlements precisely because hunting has drastically reduced the number of moose:a vicious circle in which, once again, the animal is the one who pays the highest price.