The Most Striking Moments from General Milley's January 6 Interview (Politico)

 

The military’s top general was so alarmed by the events of Jan. 6 that he ordered his staff to immediately start collecting “boatloads” of relevant documents for future investigations — even classifying some so that only certain people could see them.

“I knew the significance, and I asked my staff, freeze all your records,” Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley told members of the Jan. 6 committee.

The general said he went to extraordinary lengths to classify the documents “at a pretty high level” to ensure that only those “who appropriately needed to see it” could access it.

The revelation was one of many that Milley made during a Nov. 17, 2021, interview with committee members.

The 300-page transcript of the interview released this week is chock-full of wild anecdotes — not just from the day of the Capitol assault, but from the two years he served as then-President Donald Trump’s top military adviser.

From the very start, Milley makes clear that he is appalled by the events of that day. The general spoke at length about the oath he took as an officer and said he believes the insurrection was no less than an assault on the Constitution.

“The events of January 6th, in my personal opinion, were a horrific day, a tragic day in the history of America,” Milley said, according to the transcript. “So what I saw unfold on the 6th was disturbing, to say the least.”

'Nothing?’: Milley says he was surprised Trump didn’t call military during Capitol attack.

The role of the committee is “critical” to preventing such an event from ever happening again, Milley said.

Many aspects of the assault on the Capitol and the days leading up to it have already been reported in news articles and books. Yet the transcript provides fresh insights for the historical record from a top official who was there for those key events. Here are some takeaways:

America’s enemies saw an opening

Leading up to Jan. 6, Milley and other top national security officials worried that America’s adversaries would try to exploit the domestic instability across the country.

There was “general concern overseas that adversaries of the United States were going to try to exploit for their own advantage what they perceive to be instability inside the domestic politics of the United States,” Milley told investigators.

The general noted that he had multiple conversations on this topic with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence’s national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg.

Milley was “constantly” trying to reassure allies during the time period from the election to Jan. 6, he said. In addition to the widely-known phone calls to a top Chinese general, he also made “50 or 60” calls to other counterparts, including in France, Qatar, Japan, Russia and others.

The aim was to “calm waters, to make sure that people understood that … this is a stable government, we’re not going to do something crazy and all that. That took a degree of effort,” he said.

Norquist predicted the Capitol assault

During an interagency rehearsal of the vote to certify the election in the days leading up to Jan. 6, then-Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist predicted that the greatest threat that day would be “a direct assault on the Capitol,” Milley said.

“I only remember it in hindsight because he was almost like clairvoyant,” Milley said. “He nailed it. He pegged that one. Incredible.”

The exercise was conducted at Milley’s insistence, and involved laying out the entire city on the gym of Conmy Hall, in Fort Myer, Virginia. The Secret Service, which officials tapped to be the lead federal agency for the day, videotaped the rehearsal.

By contrast, then-national security adviser Robert O’Brien said the greatest threat would come from “Antifa and Black Lives Matter assaulting the protesters,” which struck Milley as interesting.

“Both are potentially legitimate views. But one guy who’s hanging out in the White House, he says that during one of these calls,” Milley said of O’Brien. “Was that the view of the President?”

“Protect my people”

On Jan. 3, the national security team assembled to brief the president about Iran increasing the number of centrifuges it can use to enrich uranium. At the very end of the meeting, Milley remembers, Trump turned to acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller and asked him if he was “set” for Jan. 6.

“You’re set for the 6th and all that and you got a plan and, you know, protect my people and all that. Right?” Milley said. “And I’m silent. I’m just listening and I’m like, hmm.”

This struck Milley as “odd,” he said, because it was so out of place at the meeting.

Loud words for Patel

Milley admits to mouthing off at Kash Patel, a Trump loyalist who became chief of staff to the acting defense secretary at the end of the administration. At the time, a number of media reports emerged that Patel was about to be tapped for a top position, including potentially replacing Gina Haspel as CIA director.

Milley recalls mocking the chief of staff in front of a number of top DoD officials, including the Army secretary and superintendent of West Point, at the Army-Navy game in December of 2020.

“I said in perhaps a voice that was louder than maybe I should have, I said to Kash Patel, I said: So, Kash, which one are you going to get, CIA or FBI?,” Milley told investigators. “And Patel’s face, you know, he looks down and he comes back and says: Chairman, Chairman.”

Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, told Milley to back down, noting “Hey, it’s none of your business. This is personnel.” Milley backed off, he said.

Haspel later threatened to resign if the administration made Patel her deputy, and the idea was dropped.

Loyalists at DoD

Days after the election, Trump set off alarm bells by firing a number of top Pentagon officials, starting with Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and installing loyalists on a temporary basis in the most critical national security jobs.

In quick succession on Nov. 10, a day after Esper’s firing, top officials overseeing policy, intelligence and the defense secretary’s staff all resigned, replaced by political operatives who had trafficked in “deep state” conspiracy theories, POLITICO reported at the time.

“There was a general feeling of unease amongst [inaudible] in the Pentagon at the time. And there was a feeling of unsteadiness in the building for a period of time because of all these moves,” Milley said.

And the feeling wasn’t limited to inside the Pentagon. Allies noticed the changes with concern, too.

“You’ve got a large organization like the Pentagon that’s responsible for the U.S. military all over the world, and all of a sudden, boom, you make these rapid-fire changes,” Milley said. “So, yeah, it’s a period of personnel instability that creates organizational instability that creates anxiety in countries overseas.”

The biggest concern was that most of the top national security positions were filled by people in an acting capacity who were not Senate-confirmed, he stressed.

“That should cause people pause right off the bat,” Milley said. “It gets noticed by overseas, folks overseas, et cetera.”

Unlawful orders
No call from Trump
Court-martialing retirees

There were “indications” throughout the two years he served as joint chiefs chair under Trump that the president was contemplating issuing unlawful orders to the military, Milley said. While not specific to the election or the Insurrection Act, there were “other discussions” that caused him to worry, particularly about a crisis overseas.

“I was concerned that there could have been a serious overseas crisis at a moment in time in combination with serious domestic violence that could become the predicate for something that probably was extrajudicial or unconstitutional,” Milley said.

Milley made and received dozens of phone calls on Jan. 6, including with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence, but never got one from his boss. He stopped short of saying he was frustrated with the president’s silence, he said “I noted it.”

“You’re the Commander in Chief. You’ve got an assault going on on the Capitol of the United States of America, and there’s nothing? No call? Nothing? Zero?” Milley said. “No attempt to call the Secretary of Defense? No attempt to call the Vice President of the United States of America, who’s down on the scene?”

Milley had to dissuade officials in the Trump administration who discussed recalling and court-martialing retired military officers who wrote editorials that were critical of the president, he said. His concern was that such a move would further politicize the military.

“I advised them not to do that,” Milley told investigators. “And I said: ‘please give me a chance to calm the waters a little bit.”

Lara Seligman is an award-winning journalist who covers the Pentagon for POLITICO. Her reporting on the military and the defense industry has taken her around the world, from the Middle East to Mongolia to the backseat of an Air Force Thunderbird.

 

After Selling "Soul to Sedition Caucus," McCarthy Finally Elected Speaker

 

After nearly a week of chaotic voting on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Republican Kevin McCarthy of California was elected Speaker of the House of the 118th Congress just after midnight early Saturday morning after finally securing enough votes in the 15th ballot.

The final tally was 216 votes for McCarthy and 212 votes for Democrat Hakeem Jeffries of New York, after 6 far-right holdouts, including Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), lowered the threshold to secure the speakership by voting "present" instead of registering a vote for another GOP member.

Progressive critics responded to the final vote by noting the price paid to win over the hostage-takers in the Republican conference.

"Kevin McCarthy has repeatedly put his personal ambitions ahead of our democracy," said Sean Eldridge, president of Stand Up America, referencing the GOP leader's membership in the "Sedition Caucus" to whom he said the new speaker had "sold his soul."

"He voted against certifying President Biden's victory and obstructed the investigation into the January 6 attack on our country," Eldridge said.

Eldridge noted that over 70% of the current GOP conference in the House "are election deniers, including every single member of GOP leadership." That fact, he said, "should be chilling to every American who cares about protecting our democracy and our freedoms."

"This week," said Eldridge, "McCarthy made dangerous concessions to the most fringe members of the House in exchange for their support in his effort to become Speaker. The punishment for his political cowardice will be presiding over the GOP's conference of chaos for the next two years. Unfortunately, it's the American people who will pay the price."

The 15th ballot followed a dramatic 14th ballot vote in which tensions soared on the floor of the House chamber.

The nearly five-day battle for the speakership is over.  –

John Queally, Common Dreams

 

Illinois House approves assault weapons ban

 

Six months after the Highland Park Fourth of July parade massacre, the Illinois House on Friday cleared a measure that would immediately ban the sale of assault weapons in the state and prevent sales of large-capacity magazines that hold more than 12 rounds.

After a lengthy debate that stretched into the early hours of Friday, the House voted 64-43 to pass the measure that would also ban “rapid-fire devices” that turn firearms that fire one shot per trigger pull into fully automatic weapons. It must still clear the Illinois Senate.

“This legislation will most importantly ban the new sale of assault weapons in the state of Illinois. This is what the people of this state have been calling for. And that’s what it will deliver,” Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch said during debate. “These are weapons that belong on a battlefield, not at parades celebrating our country’s independence or at parks or at schools.”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has said he would support passage of an assault weapons ban and joined Democrats on the House floor during the entirety of the debate.

Lead sponsor state Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, who was at the parade shooting with his family, recounted some of the horrific encounter — the images of a bloodied toddler he saw being dragged away and the sounds of gunfire he heard. Morgan said he had a hard time at 10:14 a.m. on Wednesday, the exact time the shots rang out on six months earlier.

“This is not a unique situation. And I left that day thinking I will do whatever I can, whatever is in my power to make sure, none of us, none of you, none of your communities go through what we went through,” Morgan said at the end of a nearly two-hour debate. “And yet I failed. Because within three days after the Fourth of July, there were more gun deaths throughout the state of Illinois than that day on the Fourth of July in Highland Park. So I failed. I literally have been carrying that on my shoulders to this moment as we stand here right now.”

Outgoing Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, R-Western Springs, who has been a vocal supporter of an assault weapons ban for years, spoke in support of the measure. “I’m tired. I’m sickened by the shootings everywhere in this state with these types of weapons,” Durkin said.

But other Republicans questioned whether the measure will pass constitutional muster and said it will criminalize lawful gun owners. “We’re talking about gun crime. We’re talking about urban gun crime. We’re talking about mental health issues. And these are two things we’re not combatting in this,” said state Rep. C.D. Davidsmeyer, R-Jacksonville. “We are going after legal gun owners who have done nothing wrong. Ninety-nine point nine percent — 99.999, right — have done nothing wrong, and we’re going after these individuals, and I think it’s wrong. We’re drawing at straws. I agree with you on the problem. But your solution is going at all the wrong people.”

Those who already own assault weapons would be able to legally keep their firearms by registering them with the Illinois State Police within 300 days of the law taking effect. The goal of the legislation is to stem future sales.

Sponsors added language that would exempt active-duty law enforcement and retirees who have served in law enforcement for over 10 years from the firearm purchase restrictions. Retired officers will not be exempt from the ban on high-capacity magazines.

Language that would have raised the eligibility for a state firearm owner’s identification card for most Illinois residents to 21 was not included in the measure that cleared the House. That language was included when House Democrats initially filed the bill on Dec. 1. And sponsors also added language that would allow gun manufacturers to continue to make firearms that can be sold in states where their sale is still legal.

Other lawmakers called on bill sponsors to lessen penalties for those caught with high-capacity magazines — lessening a second offense to a $1,000 fine instead of a felony charge. Criminal justice advocates had argued the new restrictions could disproportionately affect Black and Brown communities.

Lawmakers returned to Springfield on Wednesday for the beginning of a lame-duck session. The Illinois House held three committee hearings in December in Chicago about the controversial measure, which featured more than 12 hours of testimony from gun-rights advocates, anti-gun supporters and victims of crime...

The legislation would also extend the duration of such firearm restraining orders from six months to a year. It would also give state’s attorneys standing to assist in filing such an order. No one had sought such a restraining order against Crimo, even though Highland Park police were called to the family home in April 2019 described Crimo in their reports as having suicidal thoughts, threatening to kill his family, to “kill everybody.”

...Gun-control groups also formed a nonprofit group called “Protect Illinois Communities,” which helped to drum up support via television ads, mailers and news conferences. 

After a lengthy debate that stretched into Friday, the House voted 64-43 to pass the measure that would also ban “rapid-fire devices” that turn firearms into fully automatic weapons. It must still clear the Illinois Senate.

-Tina Sfondeles, Chicago Sun-Times

 

"For every working Republican power player, including the two Republican members of the Jan. 6 Committee, accountability stops at the courthouse door" -Dahlia Lithwick

 

In thinking about the vast ethical sucking noise that’s consumed virtually all of the federal government, it’s easy to feel hopeless as 2022 grinds to an end. Donald Trump’s taxes, years ahead dedicated to Benghazi-style hearings, Supreme Court justices partying with election deniers—Bah, humbug, rinse, repeat.

That’s why the criminal referrals lobbed at Trump this week from the Jan. 6 committee are heartening and tangible. The committee’s decision to state that Trump and his most lawless supporters have committed actual crimes laid down a powerful historical marker and put important pressure on the Justice Department for future accountability.

And yet, there is something that feels entirely unsatisfying about celebrating this as a landmark win. Two years after we watched the crime happen in plain sight, and the criminals fêted and enriched, we now see criminal charges humbly suggested, for a handful of people?

It’s OK to be frustrated at the limits of the executive summary of the committee’s final report. The report itself remains forthcoming. But just for starters, Monday’s release failed to take seriously the spectacular failures of law enforcement and intelligence agencies; the limited efficacy of ethics referrals for GOP House members who failed to comply with subpoenas; and the culpability of so very many Republicans who have aided and abetted Trump’s big lie for two straight years.

For its own obvious reasons, the committee opted to focus its gaze on Donald Trump and the weirdest weirdos in his orbit, thus sparing some of the worst denialists, liars, and insurrectionists in the GOP from the prospect of serious accountability. But Trump himself was already slipping from “hot” to “not” at meteoric speeds, which is perhaps why the focus on the former (or—as the panel sordidly referred to him Monday—the “ex”) president seems so painfully narrow.

It’s at least possible to surmise that the biggest winners after the committee finished its superb work would be Ron DeSantis, the Murdochs, Liz Cheney, and all those advocating that the GOP dump Donald in favor of literally anyone who can push wildly conservative outcomes without the added peril of his bottomless unhinged-ness. By that token, Monday was a very good day for the GOP, as measured by the opening of yet another offramp for anyone still in search of an offramp.

Consider that Ginni Thomas was nowhere mentioned in the executive summary—nor, aside from an opinion citation, was her husband, the sitting Supreme Court justice who will not recuse himself from cases that involve the Jan. 6 attempted insurrection in which his wife had both participated in the efforts and a vested interest in the outcome. Given the committee’s deference to the Thomases throughout its hearings, no surprises there. But it is still disappointing, for those of us who bought into the idea that the committee could restore some real idea of justice across government.

Instead, no matter what they may tell you about the rule of law and the need for consequences and accountability, absolutely nobody in the GOP as it is currently constituted has any interest in stopping the goose that has laid the conservative legal establishment’s golden egg. Love him or hate him, Thomas has been the single most effective jurist in modern history, and even those conservatives who deplore Trump’s incitement and violence and threats will gleefully turn a blind eye to Thomas’ ethical lapses if it means securing enduring wins on abortion, guns, massive deregulation, and ascendant corporate power.

Virtually nobody who is winning at the Supreme Court in a decades-long conservative legal project aimed at dismantling environmental protections, subverting minority voting rights, and imposing theocratic supremacy is going to take seriously the myriad ethical conflicts and structural failings that plague the current court. Better to keep pretending that Donald Trump is the problem than concede that the problem is actually that both Trump and the Thomases operate as if the law is for the little people, and the law lets them.

Clarence and Ginni Thomas were ultimately untouchable for the Jan. 6 investigators for the same reason they are untouchable for purposes of Supreme Court ethics reform: When you’re a justice, they let you do it. And when you are delivering long-sought victories, even ethical Never Trumpers like Liz Cheney will let you do whatever it takes to deliver the goods.

I’ve been struck that in recent reporting on ethical lapses at the high court, conservative legal enthusiasts have begun to advance the claim that there is no need for binding ethics rules because conservative triumphs are so plainly and self-evidently correct that there can be no other outcome.

Here’s a version of that argument applied to Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society assisting Kellyanne Conway in selling her polling business while she was lobbying the Trump White House in its judicial selections: “It seems bizarre to think that any possible lobbying by Kellyanne Conway would have added to the force of [the court’s] commitment or to the influence that Mitch McConnell and Don McGahn had already wielded,” said Ed Whelan, a former clerk to Antonin Scalia.

And here’s Mark Paoletta, the former Clarence Thomas clerk who worked on Thomas’ Senate confirmation and who now represents Ginni Thomas in Jan. 6 matters testifying in opposition to Supreme Court ethics reform earlier this month: His argument was that a campaign in which big donors forked over cash to the Supreme Court Historical Society in order to put pressure on justices to overturn Roe v. Wade was not an ethics problem at all. Why was that? Because pushing Alito, Thomas, or Scalia rightward was laughable, you see, since their opposition to Roe was already known. They’re so conservative, it’s not possible to corrupt them with money.

Wait. So, the justices who swore at their confirmation hearings that Roe was binding precedent were in truth so in the tank for overturning Roe that no amount of pressure to do so would have made a difference? Since everyone knew that overturning Roe was why they were appointed? Got it. No wonder Supreme Court ethics reform is a dumb idea.

If a code of ethical conduct isn’t necessary because conservative legal thinkers are impervious to influence and bribes from those with whom they are in lockstep, there’s no need for any limits on who they party with or travel with or accept gifts from. Of course, at that point, we should probably stop characterizing the place as a “court.”

In thinking about the ethical emptiness that’s swallowing all three branches of our federal government, I’ve been revisiting the speech that Rep. Gerald Ford, then House minority leader and future president of the United States, gave when he attempted unsuccessfully to impeach Justice William O. Douglas, in 1970. While Ford’s efforts to impeach the wild man that was Douglas failed, and are largely derided as motivated by political partisanship and score settling, the text of his speech is illuminating.

Douglas, to be sure, was a piece of work. According to one book review by Jeffrey Rosen: “His neglected children found him ‘scary’ and noted that he spoke to them only when ‘press photographers wanted a picture.’ They also resented his treatment of their mother, his first wife, whom he threw over after 28 years of marriage for a series of younger women. He left his third wife for a high school student who had asked him to sponsor her senior thesis, and then divorced her after 24 months for a college student whom he had met while she was a waitress in a cocktail lounge. He kept a room at the University Club, to which his messenger would drive Supreme Court secretaries who caught his fancy. In his sixties, he routinely invited flight attendants to visit him at the Court, where he would lunge at them in his chambers.”

Most of Ford’s speech was devoted to the proposition that Justice Douglas was a dirty, dirty boy, who wrote for dirty, dirty magazines and dabbled in some kind of “international gambling fraternity,” and palled around with dubious sorts of former casino owners and “young hothead revolutionaries.” It’s mostly very silly. But it’s pretty striking that in 1970, a purely partisan witch hunt against a liberal jurist for alleged pornographic violations was taken more seriously by Congress as an ethics scandal than one involving a Supreme Court justice whose wife was involved with an attempt to subvert a presidential election.

Republicans, for all their past sins, did in relatively recent history say that there were lines that people in power could not cross. As a result of the conduct of Ford’s immediate White House predecessor, many voted to say that orchestrating and covering up the Watergate break-in crossed a line. With Ford’s crusade against Douglas, a justice’s alleged sexual impropriety had crossed a line.

Today’s GOP—be it at the Supreme Court or in Congress or in the White House—proved once again this week (and in the months and years preceding it) that there are no real lines between its dreams and its victories. Judicial corruption, a violent coup attempt—whatever. For every working Republican power player, including the two Republican members of the Jan. 6 Committee, accountability stops at the courthouse door.

Pay very close attention as you read the final report, to where the bipartisanship around the Jan. 6 Committee recommendation begins and ends. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have done yeoman’s work to shore up the rule of law and accountability for Donald Trump and the worst of his confederates. But the work will also provide a pretty flawless map to which legal and ethical lapses are disqualifying and which are tacitly encouraged.

One branch of government is checked and the other is given a pass. It’s clear that whatever part law enforcement, House Republicans, MAGA election deniers still in office, and particularly any Supreme Court justice or their spouse may have played in an attack on the republic in 2021 will be forgiven and forgotten. They’re still all on one team, and—law and ethics notwithstanding—that team is all in on winning the fights that really matter. 

-Dahlia Lithwick, “Why the Jan. 6 Committee Let Ginni and Clarence Thomas Off the Hook,” Slate

 

Hunters allowed to kill 75 wolves from an already endangered population of 460 amid ‘political pressure’ from hunting lobby

 

The biggest wolf cull in modern times has begun in Sweden as nature organisations warn it could drastically harm the population.

 

On Monday, the Guardian accompanied 200 hunters as they went to kill wolves in the frost-covered forests between Gävleborg and Dalarna, hunting from midnight until the sun set at 3pm. Groups will be going out across Sweden all month as they attempt to take down the large predators.

On Monday, the hunters surrounded areas where they knew the wolves had lairs. They released dogs, whose job was to search out the wolves and then drive them on a path towards the waiting hunters, but they had no luck, and the hunters went home empty-handed.

However, the dogs have now identified some of the lairs so the hunters will be able to move faster going forward.

Over the next month, hunters will be allowed to kill 75 wolves from a population of 460, as the government seeks to reduce the population density in certain districts.

“Hunting is absolutely necessary to slow the growth of wolves. The wolf pack is the largest we have had in modern times,” Gunnar Glöersen, predator manager at the Swedish Hunters’ Association, told local press as the hunt began on Monday. But nature organisations have pointed out that the Swedish population of wolves is relatively low – in Italy there are more than 3,000.

They have appealed against the decision, which they argue breaks the Bern convention, but to no avail.

“You get discouraged. There is report after report that the wolf tribe has major problems, but [the government] don’t take it seriously,” said Daniel Ekblom, from the Nature Conservation Association’s wildlife management group in Gävleborg.

Marie Stegard, the president of the anti-hunting group Jaktkritikerna, said: “Wolves as top predators in the food chain are a prerequisite for biodiversity. Killing a quarter of the population through hunting has negative consequences for animals and nature. It’s disastrous for the entire ecosystem. The existence of wolves contributes to a richer animal and plant life. Human survival depends on healthy ecosystems.”

Anna-Caren Sätherberg, the Swedish rural affairs minister, recently told the public broadcaster SVT: “We see that the wolf population is growing every year and with this cull, we want to ensure that we can get down to the goal set by parliament.

 

“We can see that the level of conflict has increased, and that the level of acceptance has fallen,” Sätherberg said, adding that the government had asked the state environmental protection agency to look again at recommended population numbers.

The agency had previously recommended that the population should not fall below 300, to avoid it being further weakened and threatened by inbreeding. However, a majority in the Swedish parliament is in favour of cutting the wolf population to 170 individuals, at the very bottom of the 170 to 270 range that would allow the country to meet the conservation requirements of the EU’s species and habitats directive.

Hunting is a hot political topic in Sweden, with a powerful lobby able to influence politicians into allowing more animals to be killed. Stegard added: “It is obvious that there is a strong political pressure for licensed hunting for wolves, and also lynx and bear.  

“There is a large majority of Swedes who like wolves, even where they live. In our opinion the reason for these hunts are simply that there is a demand for shooting wolves among hunters. The hunters’ organisations have enormous power in Sweden. It is a fact that the Swedish parliament has a hunters’ club open to members of all parties, with a shooting gallery underneath the parliament. This sounds like a joke but it’s absolutely true.”

A group of scientists from top European universities recently wrote to the journal Science, arguing that scientific advice for this goal had not been sought and that it would threaten an already fragmented and fragile population.

Benny Gäfwert, a predator expert at the WWF, said the parliament’s figure of 170 was “not based on any scientific facts”.

“Unforeseen things can happen in wild populations and a level of 170 is far too low,” he told SVT. “We have a problem when it comes to the genetics of wolves, and the smaller the wolf population, the greater the impact of fluctuations in genetic status.”

Norway shares a wolf population with Sweden along its border, which poses further threats to the endangered predator. Norway and Sweden’s wolf population – the Scandinavian wolf – is on the endangered species list and are categorised as critically endangered in Norway and severely endangered in Sweden.

 

Norway’s government has put in place a very restrictive wolf management policy with a fixed population target of only four to six pups every year. As far as it is known, Norway is the only country in the world that sets a maximum target number for a critically endangered species. It allows hunters to drastically reduce the wolf population each year. This extra pressure from the Swedish government, nature campaigners argue, could further imperil the species.

 

Campaigners in Norway are fighting the decision to allow such a large cull in court, and there is a hearing next week which they hope to win. If they do, it could have ramifications in Sweden, which is governed by the same European laws.

The nature group Aktivt Rovdyrvern (ARV) said: “Population genetics has shown that to maintain a viable population you need to have approximately 1,500 individuals with genetic variation. Sweden and Norway currently have about 400 wolves but this seems destined to be reduced to about 200 individuals in total with 170 of them in Sweden and the remaining 30 in Norway. This is incompatible with establishing and strengthening a viable population of wolves on the Scandinavian peninsula both in the short and the long term.”

The Swedish government has been contacted for comment.

 

-Helena Horton and Beata Furstenberg in Sandviken, The Guardian