6th Norwegian Animal Ethics Conference held and chaired

Tuesday this week I co-organized, and chaired, the 6th Norwegian Animal Ethics Conference (Dyreetikkonferansen), which this year was devoted to the topic "Ulv, ulv! Hva er ulvens plass i dagens Norge?" [Wolf, wolf! What is the place of the wolf in contemporary Norway?]. Some 80 people attended. The conference took place at Litteraturhuset in Oslo, and was arranged by Minding Animals Norway and Norway´s Council for animal ethics.

Book sent to print

Our book Ulvetider [Time of the wolf] has been sent to print today.

Off it goes!

I have just finished proof-reading Ulvetider [Time of the wolf], our co-authored book. Off it goes!

Book launch in Kristiansand

This evening I have taken part, on stage, at a meeting where Vega publishing house, along with Jutitzen publishing house, launched its autumn book releases. I was interviewed for some 10 minutes on the book Ulvetider, co-written with Lars Lenth and Petter Bøckman, which will appear in about a month. Some 50-60 people from local book stores were present.

"Wolf land" cited in Hiedenpää & Pellikka

My article

Tønnessen, Morten 2010. Wolf Land. Biosemiotics 3.3: 289–297 (online version, published April 23, 2010: DOI: 10.1007/s12304-010-9077-x).

is cited in

Hiedanpää, Juha & Jani Pellikka 2017. Preadaptative Transactions and Institutional Change: Wolf-critical activism in southwestern Finland [2010e]. Environmental Policy and Governance 27: 270-281. DOI: 10.1002/eet.1754.

Excerpt (p. 277):

A marriage and a one dollar note are typical examples that Searle uses to illustrate a status function. The wolf-critical civil society has actively claimed that the wolf should not have such a position, since it lacks some essential biological properties and definitely lacks the collective and institutional properties that would constitute its status function. The wolf’s status must not be symbolized (for wolf semiotics, see Tønnessen, 2010). Instead, the wolf must be considered according to its actual physical and mental effects and not according to some agreed upon abstract properties, e.g. it being endangered, since there are tens of thousands of wolves in Russia.

Interviewed by regional newspaper on wolves

Today I have been interviewed by a journalist from Fædrelandsvennen about the cultural and ecological background for ongoing conflicts about wolf conservation. The interview will appear in a few weeks, in the weekly magazine of the newspaper.

"Wolf land" article referred to in "Habitat Model for a Recolonizing Wolf (Canis lupus) population in Finland"

My article

Tønnessen, Morten 2010. Wolf Land. Biosemiotics 3.3: 289–297 (online version, published April 23, 2010: DOI: 10.1007/s12304-010-9077-x).

is cited in 

Kaartinen, Salla, Harri Antikainen and Ilpo Kojola (2015). Habitat Model for a Recolonizing Wolf (Canis lupus) population in Finland. Annales Zoologici Fennici 52: 77–89.

Excerpt (pp. 77-78):

In Fennoscandinavia, the primary reason for the presently small number of wolves is presumably wolf-human conflicts, including wolf predation on semi domesticated reindeer herds in Northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland and sheep flocks especially in Norway, as well as wolf attacks on dogs, a problem that concerns all Nordic countries (Kojola & Kuittinen 2002, [...] Tønnesen 2010).

Reference for forthcoming book review on wolf conflicts

Some three weeks back I proof-read my book review which is to appear in the Norwegian academic journal Sosiologi idag [Sociology today] this autumn. The review will appear with no title, and no summary (correction to previous post). Reference:

Tønnessen, Morten 2013. Ketil Skogen, Olve Krange og Helene Figari 2013, Ulvekonflikter – en sosiologisk studie, Oslo 2013: Akademika forlag. Book review. Sosiologi idag 43(2): 117-122.

Book review on wolf conflicts completed - summary here

This night (sic) I finished a book review on the recently published book Ulvekonflikter – en sosiologisk studie [Wolf conflicts - a sociological study]. My review - which might have to be either shortened (in order to qualify as a book review) or rewritten (in order to qualify as a book essay) - is submitted  to the Norwegian academic journal Sosiologi idag [Sociolocy today], on invitation (by guest editor Ragnhild Sollund), and amounts to some 2.500 words as of now.

Full reference to the book reviewed:

Skogen, Ketil, Olve Krange & Helene Figari 2013. Ulvekonflikter – en sosiologisk studie [Wolf conflicts - a sociological study]. Oslo: Akademika forlag.

While being a monograph in form, and (re)written for the occasion, this book envelopes material from a number of already published English language journal articles, etc. I consider it an important contribution in the Norwegian context.

My review includes an English language summary, which reads like this:

Summary The book Ulvekonflikter [Wolf conflicts] summarizes research conducted by the three authors, which is based on interviews with informants in five Norwegian municipalities. The book is well-written – and important. As they stress, the controversy about wolves can only be explained by taking the larger social context into account, and by interpreting everything expressed with regard to wolves in light of central dimensions of conflict and processes of change. Among opponents of the wolf, it is particularly associated with urbanity and an expanding, educated middle class. Unlike in earlier times, contemporary wolf conflicts are predominantly conflicts between people. Ulvekonflikter succeeds in establishing such basic claims while also being nuanced in its presentation in a way that does virtually all stakeholders justice. Through analysis of beliefs there is broad support for as well as beliefs surrounded by controversy, this book provides valuable advice to policy and management. 

Keywords: Wolf management, attitudes to wolves, beliefs about wolves, wolves as symbols, predators, nature view