Norwegian-Swedish wolf is officially extinct
The original population of wolves living in Norway and Sweden was wiped out 50 years ago, a report commissioned by the Norwegian parliament has concluded.
About 12,000 years ago, when the giant ice sheets of the northern hemisphere were in full retreat, wolves (Canis lupus lupus) arrived in what is now Norway and Sweden. Over time, these wolves formed a distinct population that gained a heavier building and deeper shoulders in contrast to their Eurasian counterparts. By 1970, however, wild Swedish-Norwegian wolves had disappeared, mainly as a result of human hunting and ongoing conflicts with farmers.
Or so it seemed. Rumors began to circulate in the 1980s that captured Swedish-Norwegian wolves were reintroduced into the wild and that the species made a comeback. This seemed to make sense given that hundreds of wolves were found alive along the Swedish-Norwegian border. With their status uncertain, the Norwegian parliament commissioned a report in 2016 to establish what was actually going on. In an e-mail to Earther, Hans Stenøie, director of the University of Norway’s University of Technology and Science and the first author of the report, said that questions were raised regarding the truthfulness of previous research. The Norwegian parliament “wanted a new evaluation of the genetic and geographical origins of Norwegian wolves, using the latest method”, he explained.
Preliminary results were submitted in 2017, but the final report has now been released. Led by NTNU researchers, the final Report concludes that the current population of wolves now living in this area is not native to the region, as they have come from Finland. Nature hates a vacuum, as the old saying goes, so with the native wolf population gone, the Finnish wolves could expand their territory and move in directly.
“We have conducted the largest genetic study of wolves in the world”, Stenøien told Norwegian SciTech News, which reports research news from NTNU. The team collected DNA from 1,800 wolves from around the world, especially those from Europe, of which 72% were considered useful for the study. Whole comparisons were performed for increased thoroughness. The results showed that the current population of wolves living in Norway and Sweden is distinct, as they have never been mixed with the now extinct native population. The report shows that the original Swedish-Norwegian wolf is really gone, with the exception of a few individuals who currently live in zoos.
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But not everything is fine with the Finnish ex-pats. The current population of about 400 individuals turned out to be genetically distinct from their Finnish ancestors, but the report says that this is not the result of new adaptations – it is the result of inbreeding. The size of this wolf population is too small, leading to a lack of genetic diversity. The fact that these wolves are inbred may also mean that the original population of replacement wolves was small to begin with, according to the report. Since inbreeding makes the animals more susceptible to diseases and genetic conditions, the replacement wolves can in the same way follow their Norwegian-Swedish counterparts to extinction.
Interestingly, the replacement population showed very few signs of having crossed with domestic dogs.
“The Norwegian Parliament [parliament] wanted not only to know the genetic origin of the Norwegian-Swedish wolves, but also the extent of hybridization with dogs, says Stenøie to Earther. “We show that they are genetically most similar to Finnish wolves, and that there are few if any other wolves in the world with a smaller dog in the genome,” he said, adding that “Norwegian-Swedish wolves are” pure “in this respect. ”
The new report presented these facts without any comments on future wolf management. It is now up to politicians and special interests. The reintroduction of wolves is a very fragmented issue in Norway, as well as in North America. Rewilding efforts are currently underway in the United States, including in Yellowstone National Park and in Colorado, and they are equally controversial. Supporters of rewilding say it is important to rebalance the food web, while critics, mainly farmers and hunters, worry about their livelihoods and pastimes.
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