I had a field day last Monday at Orsa Björnpark taking pictures of snow leopards to complement our pictures of wild snow leopards for the book on the species that we are working on. I was there for four hours and got some nice shots.
Meanwhile my colleague Jan Fleischmann is in Stockholm meeting people and doing interviews for the book. Work is progressing.
On Saturday and Sunday I trekked on Sonfjället National Park. We did not spot any bears but that was not necessary since some of the scenes that we saw up there were most spectacular.
As we woke up in the tent the following morning everything was covered in white snow. The stunning brightness was made even more bright by the clouds that were of matching color.
I have just reinstalled my old harddrive and found some pictures. This is a Scottish wildcat from Port Lympne Wildlife Park that I took in 2009. I talked to some of the people involved in their conservation and visited this enclosure with one of the keepers.
Bad news struck recently, though, as the Scottish Wildcat Association have just reported that there may be as few as 35 individuals left in the wild and that they could be extinct within months due to interbreeding with domestic and feral cats.
Last night I got back from a nine day trip to Spain. I had the chance to see most of Madrid, meet people, see the nature of the southern country, do snorkeling in Palomares and much more.
In Madrid we visited a vegan shop called Planeta Vegano which is similar to Goodstore in Sweden.
It has been a terrific trip and I hope to go back there soon.
The crazy season is finally over and I am home. After two and a half months and 54 field days I have covered 1 122 kilometers with car, traveled through 16 out of 21 counties and lived in 10 different hostels, slept in tents, friends’ houses, canoed on rivers and lakes and seen tens of thousands of mosquitoes. All in all, it is good to be back.
So the big field season commenced in mid May. So far I have been to Vingåker, Växjö, Överkalix and Malå with various visits to Stockholm, Nyköping, Örebro, Karlstad, Umeå, Örnsköldsvik and Åmot. The next stop is Östersund on Monday.
In Överkalix I worked north of the Arctic circle. It was around10 June so the midnight sun was approaching but unfortunately it was raining during my stay there. I managed to get a glimpse of the setting sun at 23:40 up on a mountain top north-west of Malå, which was the closest I got to midnight sun. Needless to say it does not get dark during night up there, a stark contrast to winters where in some places villagers do not see the sun at all. When I worked with a helicopter census of moose in Junosuando in december one and a half years ago we did not see the sun from the village. I only glimpsed it from up in the chopper 200 meters up in the air.
Out working in the nature of Överkalix one day I notedthe following: “I am standing on the edge of a steep mountain, huge blocks of rock surrounding me. The trees, pines, spruces and birches have peculiar shapes and thick branches. This is a place where logging machines and chainsaws have never reached. Some of these beauties are hundreds of years old. During the lifetime of many women and men these trees have witnessed the vastness of the northern taiga landscape; a landscape of change.”
During a visit to Stockholm me and a friend visited what appears to be th
e only rooftop gardening project in the city. I have contacted just about all people who should know about these projects and the only one that I came to hear of was the one created by 100Hus in Hornstull.
For quite some time I have been investigating the possibility of creating a rooftop gardening project in Karlstad and the visit to the project at Hornstull gave me some ideas for practical solutions.
In the past few days I have been in Nyköping, Karlstad and Åmot for various things. In Nyköping my friends Patricia and Christian got married in a very vegan-, eco- and HBT-friendly way. It warms my heart knowing that some people are ready to go to great lenghts in order to not only save the planet but at the same time care for its people. Apart from the awesome company, the delicious vegan food, kayaking tour in the lake, sauna bath and a couple of ice cold baths in the lake made these days more than memorable.
The week came to an end with a terrific midsummer party in Åmot with loads of vegetarian food in all shapes and forms.
On May 8 and 9 I participated in a course at Grimsö Wildlife Research Station learning how to build carnivore-proof enclosures for sheep and other domestic animals.
The course was very productive and we put up two different types of fences that are very effective to keep wolves out and also work pretty well for lynx and bear.
In the picture, Helena Jones is tying the knots to the electric fence, instructed by Inga Ängsteg from Viltskadecenter.
Think global, act everywhere
Time to go off to the east coast again to do a wildlife census for a couple of weeks. We will be looking mostly for moose, hare, capercaillie and roe deer.
On Saturday the 25 of February Naturskyddsföreningen Värmland hosted the carnivore symposium Rovdjurssymposium – Framtiden. Around 100 people attended the symposium which offered several interesting talks as well as a dialogue between four organizations with sometimes conflicting interests in carnivore politics.
In the picture Camilla Wikenros from Grimsö forskningsstation holds a talk about how wolves affect the ecosystem.
Sveriges Radio, Värmlands folkblad and Nya Wermlands-Tidningen covered the symposium and you can read more in the links below.
http://www.vf.se/nyheter/karlstad/vargdebattanter-narmar-sig-varandra
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=99&artikel=4984401
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=93&artikel=4986958
http://www.nwt.se/varmland/article1062849.ece
Agneta Setterwall leads a dialogue between Roger Olsson from Svenska Rovdjursföreningen, Sven Erik Hammar from Lantbrukarnas Riksförbund, Mikael Karlsson from Naturskyddsföreningen and Hans-Bertil Granewald from Jägarnas Riksförbund.
Jonatan Borling 