Killer slug question divides Riksdag
Coming up with measures to combat unemployment is easy. But what is the government to do about those killer slugs?
The Social Democrats are demanding a national strategy.
The Spanish slug, or Arion lusitanicus as it is formally known, is a species foreign to traditional Swedish fauna.
Killer slugs were first seen in Sweden in 1975.
Today the slimy organism can be found throughout southern Sweden, in most of central Sweden, and even along the country's northern coastal areas.
An unwelcome sign of spring, the slugs were seen in western Sweden as early as January this year as a result of the mild winter.
“The government isn’t doing anything. Swedish research has moved to Norway,” said Anders Ygeman, Social Democratic head of the Riksdag Committee on Environment and Agriculture, to the TT news agency.
Now its time for the government to act, he says. In a dissenting opinion to the committee’s report on biological diversity, on which the Riksdag is take a decision on Wednesday, the Social Democrats are demanding that the government put forward a national strategy to combat the invasive slugs.
The killer slugs’ spread across Sweden is described as explosive and a threat to both commercial and recreational farming.
The strategy ought to include both exchange programs with international experts--which is likely how the killer slugs made it to Sweden in the first place--as well as domestic measures to beat back the slugs’ slow march across the Swedish countryside.
Commercial farmers and hobbyist gardeners ought to be given better information on the slugs as well and surveillance of the creatures’ advance out to take place, the Social Democrats demand.
“This shouldn’t be an issue taken over by party politics,” said Ygeman.
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The Social Democrats are demanding a national strategy.
The Spanish slug, or Arion lusitanicus as it is formally known, is a species foreign to traditional Swedish fauna.
Killer slugs were first seen in Sweden in 1975.
Today the slimy organism can be found throughout southern Sweden, in most of central Sweden, and even along the country's northern coastal areas.
An unwelcome sign of spring, the slugs were seen in western Sweden as early as January this year as a result of the mild winter.
“The government isn’t doing anything. Swedish research has moved to Norway,” said Anders Ygeman, Social Democratic head of the Riksdag Committee on Environment and Agriculture, to the TT news agency.
Now its time for the government to act, he says. In a dissenting opinion to the committee’s report on biological diversity, on which the Riksdag is take a decision on Wednesday, the Social Democrats are demanding that the government put forward a national strategy to combat the invasive slugs.
The killer slugs’ spread across Sweden is described as explosive and a threat to both commercial and recreational farming.
The strategy ought to include both exchange programs with international experts--which is likely how the killer slugs made it to Sweden in the first place--as well as domestic measures to beat back the slugs’ slow march across the Swedish countryside.
Commercial farmers and hobbyist gardeners ought to be given better information on the slugs as well and surveillance of the creatures’ advance out to take place, the Social Democrats demand.
“This shouldn’t be an issue taken over by party politics,” said Ygeman.
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