Sivut

sunnuntai 20. tammikuuta 2019

Woman arrested after 3 suspected wolves were found

This is corrected direct translation from police announcement made of the case.

The police is investigating: A woman is suspected of acquiring wild wolves for breeding dogs

16.01.2019 at 14.23Helsinki

At the beginning of January, the police caught a hint that a person living in Kanta-Häme was in possession of possibly authentic wolves. The possession of a wild animal is a crime. An investigative group on animal-related crimes, which has been operating at the Helsinki Police Department since last autumn, began to investigate the clue.
- It turned out that the person has delivered the animal or animals to his acquaintances to be "hidden". In the end, we ended up with a search in three different locations in southern Finland. We found a total of three animals whose experts thought they were genuine wolves. The estimate was made on the basis of both the appearance and behavior of the animals, says Anne Hietala , Vice President, Investigations at the Helsinki Police Department.
Home searches were made on 9.1.2019. The Helsinki District Court arrested the main suspect on Saturday, January 12, 2019. A woman is suspected of comitting a serious animal offense and a nature conservation crime. Also, two acquaintances who had taken the animals to hide for her were suspected of nature conservation crime. One of them is also suspected of animal cruelty.

Three animals had to be euthanized immediately

All three animals suspected of being wolves had to be euthanized immediately because of their suffering and poor condition. The animals were timid, and they could not be handled by humans. All the animals were visibly stressed and suffering in the places they were kept.
- Two animals were kept in a dark outdoor sauna where there was no food or water available at the time of home search. Experts estimate that keeping these animals alive would have been only a prolongation of suffering. When there was no information on the origin of the animals, euthanasia was the only option. Fear of unspecified, wild-looking and timid animals escaping out in wild was also a serious threat, Hietala explains.
Euthanized animals are subjected to dna testing to ensure that they were genuine wolves. The results have not yet come. Since 2016, imports of F1 to F4 wolf-dogs have also been banned in Finland.
The preliminary investigation has revealed that the main suspect has either brought the animals to Finland from Russia or taken them from the wild. The police suspect that the motive has been the crossing of so-called wolf-dogs. Wolf-dogs are wolf and dog crosses or offspring of such crossings.
- The captured main suspect has been raising wolf-dogs for years. She had more than 60 dogs at home, some of them wolf-dogs and some other breeds of dogs. There were also other animals on the farm. It has come to the attention of the police that the suspect has kept the animals in inadequate conditions for years and treatment has been inappropriate according to witnesses. The investigation has revealed such things as she is being suspected of a serious animal cruelty.
The police are currently investigating how imported animals have been brought into the country and whether there is any reason to suspect economic crime. Pre-examination is quite extensive and only in the early stages. There is no further information on this case at this stage of the investigation.