Swedish 'Nessie' turns up on endangered list

A Swedish council has been asked to explain why it placed a mythical monster on the country’s endangered species list.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman’s office in Stockholm also asked the environment court in Jaemtland to explain why a businessman, who said he wanted to raise monster babies, was denied permission to search for its purported eggs.

Parliamentary Ombudsman Nils-Olof Berggren said: “It was the local environment court, as a superior instance to the regional council, that had turned down an application from a man who wanted to search for and hatch the monster’s eggs, probably believing it was just a joke.”

However, Berggren also found that there was an actual decision from 1986, placing the monster under protection.

“So far we decided to have a closer look at how the listing came about, and how it is applied. If a court decided that it cannot be applied, we want to find out if the monster really needs to be protected or if the decision can be scrapped,” Berggren said.

Legend has it that the giant serpent, similar to the Loch Ness Monster, has lived for centuries in Jaemtland’s lake Storsjoen, Sweden’s fifth largest lake.