The Red List – a powerful tool or just an illusion?

Last week, a new list about species considered to be at high risk of extinction was presented by Norwegian nature management authorities. This Red List has been compiled by different specialist groups put together to assess the different risks of extinction for the Norwegian fauna. The previous Red List was made in 2006, but our Government wanted an updated version already now – only 4 years later. Four years is not a long time in nature time, but surprisingly many changes have been made in the new edition.


The Red List is ment as a tool to facilitate nature management. Areas with many red listed species at high risk of extinction will get a stricter protection than areas without. Here is my problem. Norway has been, and even if slightly improved the last decade, still is for the larger part hugely neglecting nature. Consequences are that Norway is one of the worst countries in Europe when it comes to take care of, and produce knowledge about our nature. If it can’t be hunted or fished, Norwegians doesn’t seem to care too much about it.

The seldom seen Spotted crake (myrrikse) is listed as Endangered, which means more than 20% chance of extinction within five generations. That is the same status as in the 2006 edition. Eight bird species are listed in this category.
 
The result of this is that, with the exception of a few huntable species and easy monitored species like our seabirds, we don’t have a clue about population trends, risks or even distribution for many of the species assessed. Even so, instead of being honest and say that there is data deficiency, many species have been moved down on the risk assessment status and some even kicked out all together of the new edtion since the 2006 version. Some of the changes are made because of differences in the way of assessing a species in Red List standards, more than actually biological changes in nature. Even so, reading the authors’ argumentation for ranking a specific species, you will soon see that most of the changes are just made mostly from subjective criteria by the expert groups. However, for most of the species assessed, there are no new knowledge today compared with the 2006 version. My main concern lies with the degraded status of many species, even if the actual knowledge about them is status quo. Based on the fact that areas with Red Listed species of a high risk of extinction are much easier to protect than habitat or areas with no such species, wouldn’t it be vice to act from a cautious angle and assume the worst instead of the best as long as there is very little knowledge anyway?


In my opinion, the new edition of the Red List has unfortunately made it much easier to destroy valuable nature in Norway than it was just two weeks ago.

As sad as it is, I am afraid that the new Red List will be used as a tool and ”fact sheet” for our bureaucrats to assess important nature areas and give them precise validation. When reality is that it is an illusion, and the actual knowledge about the species assessed is still as non-exsistent today as it was in 2006. The result will be that Norway’s many important nature areas soon will be gone – and so will the species living within them.

This is a new species on the Red List since 2006, and Black red-start (svartrødstjert) is now listed as Vulnerable which means 10 % chance of extinction within a hundred years. 23 bird species are listed in this category.
 
The Red List can be downloaded for free at this adress:  www.Artsdatabanken.no , The list is both in Norwegian and English.
 
 
-EG-

Nature is great - at a distance.....

I live in Norway’s 5th largest town, Trondheim. I live just three minutes walk from the town square, where most people don’t think its possible to experience any wildlife at all - except for the few seagulls and city pigeons that roam the area in hope of getting a piece of anthropogenic left overs of course. I think, and I know, differently. Every evening I have a river otter swimming past by my garden, I have a badger that often play in the garden and just the other day, there were also two young moose strolling around in the neighbourhood. Most people never notice all these animals, but when they do – its always a cry out in the local newspapers that there is too many of them, they don’t behave normally beeing so close to humans, they can be dangerous to people etc etc……


The two young moose, recently been pushed away from their mother (as is common this time of the year), was out exploring life on their own and trying to get a grip on what to do and not to do in this world. Testing boundaries - normal youth behaviour I would say. Of course, many people thought it was interesting to have such large animals walking around in the neighbourhood. Our, as usual, trigger happy wildlife management authorities thought differently - and killed them! Afterwards, they said that it was not possible to sedate them and move them back into the forest as they then only would return back to the city. Well, they never tried – so we will never know, will we? For the best for the animals they said. Hmm….maybe its just me beeing stupid, but how do we actually help healthy animals by killing them?

I am quite surprised of many people’s low acceptance for nature, and their likewise high acceptance for playing God and to decide who is going to live and not. What makes it worse, is that the decisions are often based on a complete lack of knowledge of animal behaviour and biology. In Norway, we have a strong tradition for hunting, sadly this seems to be the only method that our nature management employees think its possible to use for ”managing” nature….by shooting and killing. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for hunting and eating meat and utilise nature resources. In fact – I think its much better ethically to eat meat from a hunted wild animal, than meat from a cow or pork that has all its life lived innside in a space not big enough to turn yourself around...But I am quite astonished by the low acceptance to actually enjoy wildlife and nature alive in this country. Norwegians like to think of themselves as a nature loving people. However, to me it seems that most people are only interested in the scenery, and not really the creatures that lives in the fjord, in the forest or up on our beautiful mountains – the things that actually makes nature beeing nature.

I’ve been participating in radiotracking both wolves and lynx from time to time, and most people would probably be amazed of how close to people these animals like to live. In case you didn’t know – these animals are in fact rarely out in the wilderness. I have tracked wolves lying virtually in the garden to people’s houses, and lynx hunting domestic cats in the suburbs of Norway’s capital – Oslo. Next time you see a deer in the garden, a fox chasing some birds in a field nearby – don’t immediately think of the animal as sick, injured or a result of beeing too many – don’t run for your rifle, but rather take your time to enjoy nature’s way of adapting to a world which get more densely populated by humans as every minute goes by. It’s all natural behaviour!!

I met this fox during rush hour in the biggest city of  Norway. For some animals, an urban area might be as good habitat as any other territory far out in the wilderness.

 

-EG-