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– My life is about sheep. That is what I like and can do. It was a difficult decision.
This is what sheep breeder Laila Merethe Myrhaug says. For the past three years, a female bear has tended to the sheep of Bardu farmers in Troms.
– Here you can’t live with sheep in the area because of the bears, he says.
The sheep farmer has now applied for a grant from the Norwegian Environment Agency to switch to another industry. What she will do in his place is uncertain.
– We have talked a bit about switching to suckler cows. We have a lot of grazing, so there should be grazing animals that are more at home and in the immediate area. That bears are not eaten, says the sheep farmer.
Sheep killed and eaten by bears in Bardu June 2020.
Photo: Private
Neither cut down nor move immediately
The Norwegian Environmental Protection Agency (SNO) has been commissioned by the Norwegian Environment Agency to move the mother bear and her two children.
Morten Kjørstad is director of SNO. He says the professional community has discouraged them from making a move in the fall. Both the hio zone, the fat layer of bears at this time of year that makes anesthesia difficult, and the risk of overheating mean that there is too great an overall risk of moving bears.
– Bears lie in a den for half a year, and a bear searches for months to find an optimal place. Moving now means the bears are reaching an unknown area, Kjørstad says.
Morten Kjørstad is director of the Norwegian Environmental Protection Agency. He says it is now too risky to move the bears.
Photo: Rovdata.no
Now SNO wants to radio-mark the binna.
– It is a much easier operation to put a necklace on a bear. If we do it now, we have control of the bear and can move it in the fall, he says.
Although there are SNO employees in the area and game cameras have been installed, they do not know if the bears still walk together.
– We don’t know if the children still go with the binna. If they go together now, then they hide together, says the director.
Sheep breeder Myrhaug is not surprised that Binna and her cubs are not immediately moved. He has begun to lose faith that the bear will be eliminated.
– To be honest, I don’t think it will happen. There have been so many attempts, says the sheep farmer.
Criticism of relocation
The farming team and Storting policy Sandra Borch (Sp) have previously criticized the solution of moving the bears. They think that the bear should be common.
The Norwegian Environment Agency has rejected the request to kill the bears. The reason is that the bear population is too low in Norway. Instead, it was decided that the bear should move.
The bear is ravaging one of the so-called priority grazing areas. The intention is that grazing animals have the first right. It has been decided to move the bear to a predator priority area, where the predators will be given priority.
I don’t know if it’s enough
In Bardu, sheep farmer Myrhaug is not sure if it is enough to have his bears removed so that he can continue to raise sheep.
– I don’t know if I dare to bet on the sheep even if they take out the bear. Anyway, there will only be new bears, he says.
Describe sheep that are so scared that they are barely grazing and have started to make contact. It’s been going on for so many years that you can’t do it anymore, she says.
– I think it’s sad. Norway produces the best lamb in the world. This is because the lambs graze on mountain pastures, rather than being fed concentrates.
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