Article written following the meeting with Johan Månsson of County administrative of Uppsala
Data :
Minimum
level of lynx at Uppsala
county: 23 lynxes
National
minimum level: 137 to 250 unit of family
How many
lynx do you have in Uppsala
län? What’s the density?
There are between 24 and 30 lynxes shared
with the other counties around, it means about 6 or 8 family groups.
Lynx are
where the games are and there are a lot of hares and roe deers in the region of
Uppland. Lynx have obviously a great impact on roe deer population in the area,
it’s why they must regulate the population of lynx.
How are
their territories?
Currently the territory of the lynx
is about 20-30km2 for female and 40-50km2 for male. The
territories often overlap each other when this is a mother and her daughter.
The lynx can tolerate her daughters but not other lynx. It's rare that male
territories overlap. Example :
Red : female's territory
Blue : male's territory
The main roles of the County Administrative
are to:
- list the lynx of the County
- decide the quota of the lynx for the
year in its County
CA estimates the population by
listing family groups (i.e. the mother lynx with her kittens) because it’s easier
and you can deduce the lynx population after with a good approximation. Indeed,
a study conducted by Grimsö
Wildlife Research
Center shows that the
number of lynx can be known by multiplying the number of family group by 5,5:
Nbr of lynx ≈ Nbr of family group x 5,5
How can we list the number of
family groups?
The listing
is made by tracking. It’s necessary to have a period of 2 months of snow at least to track
them. They do the track since the first snow fall (2010 in October, 2011 in December) until the
last day of February (the hunting starts 1st of March and last all
the month). Sometimes they have to follow the footsteps during 3km to determine if they belong to a family group or a single animal: kittens walk consistently in the footsteps of their mother, suggesting that this is only a single animal. You need to find a place where the tracks split up at last.
The team
consists of 6 people trained and educated
: they have to have the similar level of knowledge.
Sometimes they organize a big
operation to separate family groups to each other with a special method to know
if there two or only one family.
They have
to wait two days after the snow stop fallen and it needs about 300 people to
look for tracks. When someone find a track, they call the central person who
collect the track. They follow the track in reverse to find the place where the
snow stopped fallen, in this way they can put a time repair on the track.
And if you
can find another track which was printed at the same moment in another place,
you can prove that they are two different family groups.
Track make you asking many
questions, after a lot of experience you are quite able to know how the lynx
behave, to think like him.
Then the County Administrative has to send
a report with all these tracking dates to EPA which collect all of them in a
data base so that they can know the current state of the situation of the lynx.
Do you have
all the responsibilities concerning large predators?
Concerning the survey of large
predators, the County
Administrative has held
all the responsibilities for 10 years. Lately in 2010, County Administrative
had also the responsibility of the hunting management but EPA still decides the quota, based on the current lynx population dynamics, for an area which can regroup 10 counties (for example
35 lynx). Before, EPA decided for each county.
We can
consider three big area in Sweden:
North: lynx is always hunted to prevent damage on
reindeers
Middle: lynx
is regulated
South: No hunt
The counties concerned organise a
meeting and split the number between themselves, depending on the data of the
last two years.
They split
the number thanks to an excel program. It’s a scientific and reliable method.
Eliminate
100 lynx in a population of 1500 lynx is not a problem for its development; Grimsö Wildlife
Research Center
showed it.
Why the
hunt of the lynx is allowed in Sweden?
Sweden has exemption in this
Convention which allowed the lynx hunting:
“Bear and lynx are protected, apart from
controlled hunting. Both are classified as vulnerable. The bear and lynx populations are steadily
increasing despite hunting. Currently there are 1,000-1,300 bears and 1,000-1,500 lynx […] As mentioned
earlier, derogations from the protection regulations have been granted for some
species (beaver, wolverine, bear and lynx)
in order to prevent damage.”
Who is
allowed to hunt a lynx? What’s the numbers of hunters in Sweden?
If you get
the licence, you are allowed to hunt lynx.
There are
about 350 000 hunters organized in
Sweden (they are
9 088 728 hab. in Sweden)
Do farmers can shoot a lynx to
defend his livestock or himself?
Farmers can
shout a lynx to protect their herd or himself, but it’s a different case than
the hunt, it’s a case of self defence but it’s really rare that a lynx attack a
herd and a lynx never attack humans.
They are
not allowed to settle traps to catch them because it can provoke hurts on the
animal, it’s valid for all animals.
Do farmers receive compensations if
a lynx attacks their livestock?
There are a lot of sheep farm in
Uppland but attacks are really rare because lynx find preys they need.
This is the County administrative
which is in charge to pay compensations. They don’t compensate the stress of
the herd: most of time it’s impossible to link the attack of a predator with
the stress, there are too many factors. They compensate the animals which are
killed or hurt. It could be about 2500Kr (about 275€) for example for a sheep
female. It can be more if the race of the sheep is rare and less if this is a
young one. They compensate the animal or the veterinary intervention also for
hunter dogs which could be attacked.
They give as well the money the
farmer needs to set up the electric fences. It has to set up in a very special
way and it could be used for 20 years.
Some
farmers use these electric fence (with very strong electricity) but it’s more effective
on the wolf and on the bears than on the lynx: lynx are able to jump over the
fence very easily. It solves the situation very fast and it’s very effective but on wolves and bears.
A
protection dog is used sometimes. There are two in Uppsala län but it’s to prevent wolf attack,
not lynx attack.
Two types
of electric fences:
Lynx are able to jump over the fence very easily :
Who’s in
charge to check the sheep and confirm that this is a lynx attack or not?
Trained personal go to the farm. It’s
up to the County administrative to check the body and come to a conclusion.
Farmers have to call C.A.
if they want to receive compensations.
Which
kind of damage do you see when there is a case of lynx attack on livestock?
Often this
is an individual problem because most of lynx don’t attack sheep herd, they are
too shy. There was a case of a farmer who had livestock of deers with high
fence, it was for hunting and for meat (60 or 70 deer in an area of 10km²
approximately).
CA gave him
4 permissions to eliminate the lynx in one year but the problem persisted. CA
decided to do the work for him and organized hunting.
The case of Sweden can
sound paradoxical in a context where the lynx is protected specie but the hunt
they practise is based on scientific method and seriously regulated and
monitored.
The goal of this hunt is to prevent damage on agriculture but also to preserve
the lynx population in a level that can permit to them to survive in a long term and, in the same time preserve their preys with a high number, like deer and reindeer.
In addition, the census period of 2010-2011 showed that the population increased significantly. Currently, the population of lynx in Sweden is about 1 500 individuals.
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