Sweden said Thursday it would allow 72 wolves to be culled next year to combat inbreeding, after last year's planned cull of 48 animals was blocked by a court. Critics of the hunt, including the European Commission and conservationists, have argued that the policy is driven more by politics than science and endangers population numbers. There are an estimated 355 wolves in Sweden. The government has pushed for their population to be reduced for more than 15 years, to the dismay of conservationists. "Since the Scandinavian wolf population is small and struggles with inbreeding, the reduction must take place gradually and in step with measures that counteract inbreeding," the county administrative boards said in a statement. The 72 wolves could be killed in five counties near the capital Stockholm from January 2 to February 15. Environmental groups last year appealed against the county boards' decision to grant licenses for 48 wolves, and won. An administrative court said the county boards had failed to prove that the hunt would not be detrimental to a healthy wolf population. "It is outrageous that one in five wolves in Sweden is going to be shot even though the population is severely threatened," Beatrice Rindevall, chair of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation told Swedish news agency TT. "Our wolves are already heavily inbred, and this hunt risks making the situation even worse. It is a reckless gamble with a protected and severely threatened species." Farmers and hunters meanwhile regard the animals as a menace because of attacks on sheep and hunting dogs and want their numbers more firmly controlled, AFP reported. Sweden's wolves were hunted to the brink of extinction by the 1960s, prompting the country to declare them a protected species. The animals started reappearing in the late 1970s and 1980s and their population grew through the 1990s. Sweden began allowing licensed hunts in 2010 after numbers passed 200, issuing quotas for the number that could be killed during a set period.
