Scandinavia Tour

Scandinavia is a region I've wanted to explore for a long time but never got round to... but with the school holidays over and Autumn approaching I finally packed the campervan and set off. This trip was more about exploration than serious photography, but of course I had my cameras with me in the hope of finding some cool wildlife in the huge national parks and forests that cover much of the region... I was naively unprepared for the dark reality of the Scandinavian attitude to wildlife.

I'd always viewed Scandinavia as a very modern region of the world, with high moral values and a caring society, and I have to admit the out-dated, brutal attitude to wildlife came as quite a shock. The scenery in Norway is superb, but its a stark, barren region and with the possible exception of the far north, not somewhere to go to see wildlife. I saw more hunters than animals and no one I met saw any problem with that. Sweden was much better. Although a frightening number of wild animals are killed each year (see below), the population levels are a lot higher and I met lots of people who are fighting against the annual mass slaughter. I would certainly recommend visiting people like Wild Nordic, Wildlife Sweden, Kloten Resort and Nordic Discovery (links above) as they all provide an excellent experience and are dedicated to preserving local wildlife... and the more visitors they get, the stronger their case. I'd also recommend contacting Gina at Wild Sweden (www.wildsweden.com) who is very efficient and helpful. Despite the limited photo opportunities, I thoroughly enjoyed my tour of the region and I will return at a more suitable time of year to support those fighting on behalf of the wildlife and hopefully get some decent photos. See below for some frightening statistics on hunting in Scandinavia.

In the UK and much of Europe, killing animals for fun is no longer considered an appropriate hobby by the majority of people, so it came as a bit of a shock to discover just how much it still goes on in Scandinavia. There are attempts to justify this in terms of providing food, managing the environment or keeping people safe, but Norway and Sweden are among the world's wealthiest countries and there are many much poorer nations that manage large mammal populations very effectively without having to resort to these extremes. In reality its about wealthy, privileged people who enjoy going out and killing animals for sport.

Below are totals for the 2023-24 hunting season. Numbers are much higher for Sweden which reflects the higher population levels. Some species are declining, but most populations are fairly stable. The killing isn't eradicating species, it's maintaining artificially unbalanced ecosystems to maximise hunting opportunities. By killing most of the predators they ensure there is very little predation so there are large numbers of herbivores available to be killed.

Figures for Norway were taken from official statistics which are available online and should be very close to the true numbers. All wild animals killed in Norway have to be reported and with hunting widely accepted by the population and taking place so openly there's little reason for hunters to risk losing their licence by failing to report.

Sweden doesn't publish hunting statistics publicly and there's no requirement to report the killing of most species, so the figures above are estimates taken from various published scientific papers. Hunting is also more controversial in Sweden and there are certainly hunters that break the rules (e.g. killing mother bears with cubs and using drones to drive them into the open) so it's very difficult to be sure how accurate the figures really are.