Swedish political party pledges War On Wolves

A new political party has launched on a single issue platform: all wolves must die. At least within the borders of Sweden. Swedish hammer of the wolves, Gunilla Gronvall, has shrugged off accusations of disingenuity to dub her new grouping the Nature Democrats. Gronvall insisted her movement didn't have a problem with wolves …

[JimC]

>Fox Issue coered by the Conservative Party

I dunno. I can imagine a party/campaign/whatever for the extermination of urban foxes quite easily. I can't quite imagine a rural hunt careering down Brixton high street either...

[Bracknellexile]

Urban Foxes?

I thought it was a campaign for the extermination of Liam Fox.

[DrXym]

237 wolves?

Wow, I can totally see how that many wolves could pose a threat in the vast snowy expanses of Sweden.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the issue is, from a documentary on the beeb one time, that the wolves in some parts tend to stalk the kids on they way home from school (easy meal) although attacks are rare. Think eternal winter and darkness, kids dropped off by bus etc. Obviously these cases are limited but I'd imagine they meet with an emotive response.

[Andrew Harvey]

Never mind arming bears!

Give the wolves guns. Time to hunt some land grabbing selfish humans for a change!

It's always about putting as many humans on as much land as possible - and screw nature. Roll on the Extinction Level Event - for humans.

</rant>

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been giving the wildlife in my area guns for years but they are generally pretty bad shots.

[Falanx]

One woman is not a party. Nor a mandate.

It's merely because of the handful of confirmed reports of wolf attacks on humans in the Fennoscadian area in a *two hundred* year period were on women :p

There have been no recorded wolf attacks on humans in that region since the 1900s, and some of the recorded ones in regions such as Russia appear to be utter nonsense - a wolf carried a 17 year old girl *by the throat* over a four-foot fence? P*ss off. A Ridgeback couldn't do that.

Well, it appears that wolves are the new threat in Sweden, after Larsson's poor grasp of maths.

[Mediocrates]

One woman is definitely not a mandate

That's when two guys go out...

[Paul Crawford]

WTF?

Why can't the leave them alone? They have every right to be out there as anything else, humans included.

These people seem to fixate on the occasional wolf/fox/dog incident and conveniently ignore the death and injury due to cars (and other human activity) which FAR outnumber them.

And if anyone says "but if it saves one child" then I hope they get their car & driving licence taken away for life, as that will do more good.

[Ian Ferguson]

Foxes

Not quite. The Conservatives want enough left to hunt.

[Tom 38]

Technically the Conservatives are pro-Foxes

They generally just want to be able to hunt them using horses and dogs, rather than shooting them.

[Is it me?]

Not just foxes

They want tohunt and shoot poor people as well.

[TeeCee]

It might not just be the Midlands.....

If any Wolves can demonstrate a tenuous link to Irish ancestry, Mick McCarthy'll probably have talked 'em into playing for Ireland already.

[System 10 from Navarone]

...group already exists in the US

The Sarah Palin 'Shoot Defenceless Animals For Fun - Airborne Division' has been going for years. Obviously a role model for Gunilla...

[Herer]

Wolves are fine. It's bears which are dangerous

I've spent time in the north of Sweden in winter and wolves are fine. If you see a wolf it means there are no bears around!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wolves

Just for the record Wolverhampton Wolves is the local speedway team, Wolverhamton Wanderers is the football team.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Wolverhamton Wanderers is the football team."

That is widely known as Wolves, that uses a wolves logo . . . .

[Thomas Allen]

Old Blighty anti-badger party

England has its own anti-badger party

[Retron]

Sweden got an absolute rollocking from the EU commission earlier this year for their wolf hunt - which was deemed illegal (wolves are strictly protected under the Bern Convention, to which Sweden is a signatory). They've ended up having to draw up plans to import wolves from Russia to broaden the genetics of their current population, which is dangerously inbred: the population of wolves in southern Scandinavia is pretty much cut off from the rest of the world.

As such, this party will have pretty much zero impact.