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.

Been a while..

Hey all. It's been a quite a while since I last time updated here. Reason for this was my own well-being, as work and actively following/engaging in the wolf issues exhausted me completely. Thus I took a complete off-grid approach on everything wolf related. Most likely I'm going to continue this way, since momentarily resurfacing still suck my energies dry even after almost a year of recuperation.

Reason for resurfacing in the world of wolf topics was that wolves did some damage just 6 kilometers away from my home. Thus to make sure I'm aware of their movements in my surrounding area (since I happen to own some sheep and a horse).

Some updates I'm gonna give to you now are the updated consensus figures, some legislative stuff and an interesting new behavior wolves here have been exhibiting.


First the estimate:

In March 2018 it was estimated that there were 165-190 wolves in Finland. This estimate was 10% larger than year before. In the estimate the packs that are shared with Russia are conted only by half of their strength. If these wolves are counted completely in to Finnish population the amount of wolves was 180-205 individuals.

The amount of packs that completely or mostly resided in Finland was 20. This is 30% larger than year before. The packs residing on both sides of the border was 5 strong, two packs drop from the previous year.
Territories inhabited by 2 wolves (pair) was 15 out of which 2 were living in the border area.
Also 3 territories were left open whether there were 2 or 3 wolves residing in the area.

The distribution of wolf packs differed significantly from previous year. The amount of wolves residing in the western wolf management zone rose from 47% to 68%. In this western management zone there were 16 likely dennings where as in the Eastern wolf management zone there were 9 likely dennings, the border pack included. the pack size was slightly larger in the west (5,1 indv.) than the east 4,4 indv.)

The known mortality between 1st of August 2017 and 31st of March 2018 was 25. Out of these there were 2 alphas, one male and one female (from different packs). Out of all there were 18 males and 7 females.
The cause of death were: 13 killed with damage based permits (1 alpha female), 5 were killed by traffic/collision, 3 were killed out of necessity (threatening behavior against humans etc.) 3 by order of the police and 1 unknown cause of death. (an alpha male).



On the legislative stuff.

-The cap of  wolves that can be hunted per year was not given this year since this kind of cap doesn't seem to have any kind of directioning effect since the permits given out are solely based on damages and thus the cap doesn't have any real function.

-The management plan is being revised and will be updated in the beginning of 2019.

-The legislation regarding damage compensations is being revised, since the funds are not enough to cover all large carnivore caused damages as it is. The largest part of the compensation money goes to the reindeer herders since most of the damages are done to reindeer and by wolverine. Also a goverment regulation called Lex Halla has given some reindeer herding areas larger compensations than others (up to three times as large a sum than the value of the lost animal). Thus Lex Halla is being ended and the compensation is redirected so that the dog owners shall get full compensation and is funds are running low the capping will be shared by the reindeer herding compensations instead of all recipients of the compensations.


And the behavioral quirk:

Wolves in the Southern Osthrobothnia have started to attack and kill animals in the fur farms. Whether this is a behavior of a single pack or couple of them is yet unclear to me. However to this day wolves have either directly killed, injured or stressed to death at least 9 silver foxes on 3 different farms.
I've never heard of such behavior before, although wolves are known to kill mesopredators in general.

The wolf estimate of 2017

Jay! It's finally out :D

Shortly put, the wolf population is estimated to have been between 150 and180 individuals in March this year. This estimate is 25% lower than the estimate last year (2016)
There are 14 packs that are wholly or mostly in Finland. (We share a number of packs with our eastern neighbor, Russia). 7 packs move across the border and are labeled as bordering packs.
18 territory marking wolf pairs out of which 3 are living in the border area.
Also in three territories it was uncertain whether area has 2 or 3 wolves, thus uncertainty of pack status.

The location of packs (green) border packs (grey), pairs (yellow) and the uncertain ones (orange)

The reason why the estimate took so long to come out, was that Luke (Natural Resources Institute Finland) researchers were using DNA analysis this time to make better estimate. The collecting of scats and analyzing them took time.

The amount packs with GPS collared wolves in them is 6, the amount of individuals collared is 13.

Reasons for decline are multiple and uncertain. Partly due the DNA testing merging some border packs in one pack (previously thought to be 2 different packs) and loss of breeding individuals in the hunting year 2015-2016 when anthropomorphic mortality rose unexpectedly high ( 75 individuals in total out of which 13 were breeding individuals).

The anthropomorphic mortality in the hunting year 2016-2017 was 57 individuals, out of which 6 were breeding individuals (1 male, 5 females).
Out of these, amount of wolves killed with regular exempt permits (given to prevent more depredations) was 15, the management exempt permits 26, by the order of the police 7, traffic killed 7, 1  by poaching.
One wolf died due accident, rising the total known mortality to 58 individuals.

The amount of pairs in wolf population was high in March (52% of all territories) when it was just 35% in March 2016. This could mean that there are now several new packs in Finland, since around 60% of pairs succeed to breed in their first spring together. (If interested that would mean 10,8 more packs formed this year, rising the amount of packs to 24-27, when counting in the 3 uncertain packs).

What's happening on the wolf front in Finland

As spring time has come, were waiting to hear latest info on population estimates. Usually the estimates have come around February-March, but since DNA-studies have been taken in to use as an aid to give more accurate estimates, the announcement date has been pushed back to May-June.
So we still have to wait bit more to find out how wolf population has reacted to the managment hunts and the unforeseen death toll of 78 individuals in season 2015-2016.

While waiting the estimates to finish, there are few things happening that are worth mentioning.

First, a so-called "wolf-rebellion" has taken place, where a group of people are willing to pay "tail-money" to Russians, who kill wolves that live both sides of the border (since problematic animals can't be removed legally in Finland, the problem wolves can be dealt on the other side of the border in Russia, where hunting wolves is legal and wolves have had bounty on them before.
Reasons for this movement is aforementioned lack of legal options to remove problem individuals and packs but also a certain worry over the wild forest reindeer, which numbers in it's former core area has been dwindling due heavy predation.

Second form of rebellion is seen in several parts of Finland, where the volunteer hunters who have formed the Large Game executive assistance force, are ending their contracts with police, since wolves have become such a large threat to the dogs used to track injured large game animals (moose and large carnivores) that the owners do not want to take that risk during training or in actual search situation.

Then there is the ongoing dispute over purity of our wolves. Official records recognize only 3 individuals from the past which have been wolf-dog hybrids. Others consider that the change in appearance and behavior of wolves in the past decade or so is due dog genes contaminating our wolf population and some have gone as far as claiming the whole population being nothing but hybrid mutts.
There is an ongoing pro-grad study in University of Oulu, where a new method is being developed to help recognize hybrids more easily. This will also include making a family tree out all the existing samples from the past 150 years.
(Link to the researcher Jenni Harmoinen's profile page: http://www.oulu.fi/wildlifegenomics/node/34127)

Update on wolf hunting and licences 19th of Jan.

Here is a small update on the situation:

As of 17th of Jan (permits are made available for public to view 2 days after decision) the amount of wolves requested to be hunted totaled at 69 individuals.
Out of these 7 were requested and given to reindeer herding area. (no quota)
As for the rest of Finland, 62 individuals were requested to be hunted (quota was set at 53 individuals).

Permits were granted for 20 wolves (as of the 17th), out of which 13 were granted to Northern-Karelia. (amount requested from N-K was 44 wolves).

As of 19th (today) 10 wolves have been killed since the beginning of the year. 1 was removed by the order of the police as the male wolf was suffering from a mange and 9 individuals have been shot with exempt permits, all of which have had a tendency to visit yards (definition for a yard visit is wolf moving less than 100 meters from an inhabited house, animal shed or farm.)

Of the first 2 hunting permits

The Finnish Wildlife Agency has given 2 permits (each having licences to kill 2 individuals) to hunt wolves. Here I'll do a small summary on the reasons behind granting the permits.


First the one was given to the so called Renko pack.

This pack is situated in Kanta-Häme, area with rather high population density (~32 km² )
The pack in question has made visits to yard areas (less than 100 meters from a inhabited house) 65 times between 1st of June and 4th of January. Amount of wolves doing these visits has ranged from 1 to 8 at a time.
There has been 2 deterring events ordered by the police, last one was done 4th of December after which wolves have continued to visit in yards (16 times).
After the beginning of June, the emergency center has gotten 6 emergency calls concerning the wolves.

The second one was given to the so called Höljäkkä pack.

This pack is situated in the border area of Lieksa and Nurmes. Area is not densely populated in general, but the pack's core territory is in the middle of densely populated area consisting of several villages.
This pack has made almost 100 visits to yards between the 1 st of June and 2nd of January. Last year, two female pups were shot from the pack and the alpha female produced a large litter this year making the pack size rise to 9. Two individuals have died from this pack due collisions with train. (young individuals)
This pack has killed 1 dog and mauled another. Also one dog was killed in the near by area, but not by the pack in question.
This pack has other packs bordering it, having 8 packs in a 100km radius.
The moose hunting is not conducted in the area due low densities of moose.
Extra school rides have been taken in to use to safeguard children's travel to school and back. These cost 11 345 euros per month (in Lieksa) and 3500 euros (in Nurmes) per year.
One wolf was killed by the order of the police in the area, a malnurished male, weighing only 15 kg. ( 27th of November). Most likely this individual was not part of the pack in question,


Both permits state that it is recommended to take young individual from the pack and to avoid killing a reproducing individual.
The permit is in effect for 21 days.

On wolf hunt between 22nd Dec -16 and 31st of July 2017

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry gave out a decree ruling that maximum amount of wolves killed between giving of the decree (22nd of December 2016) and end of the hunting year 2016-2017 (31st of July 2017) is 53 wolves.
This is not a amount that is target, but an upper limit after which no more permits can be given by game management.

The amount will include ALL known mortality, so every vehicle collision, police permit, inter species kill is counted. 

The first one to be taken from this quota was a male wolf shot since it was suffering from a serious case of mange and was ruled to be killed to end it's sufferings.

In the first week of January total of  18 permit applications were made, out of which 2 were accepted, others will need extra info and will be re-viewed in the second week of Jan.

These 2 permits were given to areas of Renko (2 wolves) and area consisting of parts from Lieksa and Nurmes. (2 wolves.) Both permits are targeting packs doing frequent yard visits and showing lessened fear towards humans. Permits have terms that limit the usage to young and harm causing individuals, usage of dogs during the hunt, organizing the hunt and amount of people to take part in the hunt.

The "mid-term" evaluation given to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry estimates that there are 32-38 packs in Finland currently (reproduced packs).

Amount of wolves does not seem to have changed drastically from the year 2015, the final estimate will be given in March.

The packs in December. Blue ones contain 8 or more wolves, green ones with red circle around them are still uncertain.

Wolf quota to be set at 40 individuals outside reindeer herding area

Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry proposes: Wolf quota to be set at 40 individuals outside reindeer herding area

Ministry is proposing a yearly quota of 40 individuals to be killed during 2016-2018 hunting years (2 year period). The amount will be put in to a new consideration in 2017.

The amount of killed wolves will include all known wolf mortality outside reindeer herding area.

The permits will be issued through derogation clauses b and c in Article 16 of Habitats Directive. ( (b) to prevent serious damage, in particular to crops, livestock, forests, fisheries and water and other types of property;
(c) in the interests of public health and public safety, or for other imperative reasons of overriding public interest, including those of a social or economic nature and beneficial consequences of primary importance for the environment;)

The given permits can be put to use immediately, giving more chances to regulate the hunting. (Since the permits won't be active all in the same time)
 When the permits are given gradually, it is also easier to keep track of hunted alpha females and effect the hunting has to the wolf population.

The decree will be given for 2 hunting years to ensure the Finnish Wildlife Agency has enough flexibility and interminably to issue the permits for  applications that fulfill the requirements.
The decree will be re-examined in the end of 2017.

According to the preliminary estimate made by Natural Resourses Institute, there are 23-28 wolf packs in Finland, out of which 9 are shared with Russia.
Last year the preliminary estimate gave 22-43 packs out of which 10 were shared with Russia

More detailed estimate will be given in December 2016, including more precise knowledge of amount of packs and a preliminary estimate of the amount of wolves.
The final estimate will be given in March 2017

Been a while....

It's been a while since I last wrote, mainly since there isn't much to report.

The final-final results of the management hunt from this spring came in few days ago.

So the amount of wolves killed in this management hunt was 43 individuals. Out of them 25 were males and 18 females.
Adult:sub-adult:pup ratio was 23:1:19.
Confirmed alphas included 3 males and 8 females.
Males without confirmation/knowledge of status: 9
Males non-alpha 2
Females non-alpha 1
Female/Male pup ratio 9:10
1 sub-adult male

Including the confirmed alphas from other removals, the complete toll of alphas killed between 1.August 2015-31.July 2016 was 13 alphas. During this period total of killed wolves was 73.

This amount was way larger than anticipated. 30 wolves died outside of the management hunt. At least 10 of them were killed in the reindeer herding area, some of them died in vehicle collisions, one was shot to safeguard one's life (a collared wandering male redirected his aggression towards a man after hunting dog escaped him to his owner and owners friend). Several were ordered by the police to be lethally removed after deterring didn't work (these instances happened in and close proximity of either settlements or urban areas.)

The hunting will however continue, although different, since the unexpected amount of killed wolves during a year period. Details of future hunting legislation is still being prepared, but already it has been confirmed that there'll be a yearly cap for wolves killed and the permit process will be lighter. One of the biggest problems of the test management hunt was the period of appeals. The permits had to be issued early, so that the hunt would be over before the breeding season. In future, it seems, the appeal period will not be used. (There was also a rush during the hunt, due fear of withdrawal of the permits by court of justice, which might be partially to blame for large amount of alphas felled during the hunt.)

The preliminary estimate of the wolf population shows decrease in number of packs, but since the observation period for this was only approx. 2 months long (1. August - around 15.October) and without any snow on the ground, it is highly uncertain. The amount of packs given in this preliminary estimate was 23-28. Last year the similar estimate was 22-43 packs. (Confirmed later to be 37-39 packs).
Information regarding whether there'll be a new, more certain estimate is contradicting, since the management plan states there'll be 2 estimates, one given in October-November containing amount of packs and a final estimate in February-March including amount of individuals.
But during the press conference it might have been said, that there will be a 3rd estimate, that will be given somewhere around November-December when snow cover reveals tracks made by packs and pairs. Unfortunately, the information regarding this is scarce and the Natural Resources Institute hasn't told anything in it's own web-page regarding this estimate. (only the press release was given through STT-news agency)

Interesting but not practical.

A new study made in Stockholm university and published in Nature suggests that Finland should have at least 800 and Sweden 1200 wolves to keep the whole Fennoscandian wolf population genetically viable in long term. Fennoscandian population includes subpopulations of Scandinavia, Finland, Russian Karelia and Kola peninsula.
Study does not seem to trust Russia's populations to be any help since Russia is not bound by any international laws of conservation thus requiring Finland and Sweden/Norway to have 2000 wolves or 500 breeding individuals between them. Unfortunately such amounts are not practical in any way. Both Finland and Sweden are having trouble with their less than 50 packs per country, amounts of 100 packs/pairs in Finland and 150 in Sweden are something that can not be realized, simply due demographics. Both Finland and Sweden are thoroughly inhabited outside the reindeer herding areas, leaving only fragmented areas for packs to live.

The fragmentation of areas.

Link to the study in Nature

Results of the 2nd test hunt.

The results of the second test hunt have arrived, meaning that we now know killed individuals ages and their status in the pack in addition to their sex.

The results go like this:

Out of 43 individuals, 9 were alphas, 15 other adults, 17 juveniles and two <1 year old.

-The sex ratio of alphas was 8 females and 1 male.
-The other adults had a reverse sex ratio, 14 males and one female.
-Out of the 17 juveniles 9 were males and 8 were females.
-The pups were one female and one male.

Below is a map of the hunting results including locations and dates.

Map

Wolf census

New census is out. According to it, after all human caused mortality (75 individuals) the wolf population of Finland is 200-235 wolves. This means that before hunting and all other human caused mortality, wolf population was at least 275-310 strong.

Number of packs is approx. 37-39 and 16 pairs. Out of these, 26-27 packs and 14 pairs live wholly inside Finland's borders. Half of the individuals that are part of these 10 bordering packs and pairs are counted in Finland's population. If the bordering packs and pairs would be counted completely in Finland's population, it would stand 230-270 strong.

According to preliminary results of the test hunt, 24 over 2-year old (adults) and 19 under 2 yr old wolves were taken. More precise information of the ages will be attained after Matson Institute in Montana has done their age estimates from teeth.

 The map of packs and pairs. Numbers inside the green and gray circles are amount of individuals in the pack

Hunted and otherwise removed or dead wolves.

Red dot signifies the management hunt and if there is a black dot inside of the red one, the individual was an alpha.

Green is wolves removed with exempt permit due amount of damage and threat individual has caused. Black dot means the individual was an alpha

Blue is wolves removed by the orders of the police and black dot means the individual was an alpha.

Green square indicates individuals killed by vehicle collisions

Blue squares are wolves that have died of other causes.

The single red triangle indicates an incident, where hunter had to kill a wolf trying to attack him.

Police: Killing of a nuisance wolf in Piikkiö has lead to threaths

Police: Killing of a nuisance wolf in Piikkiö has lead to threats

According to Police of Lounais-Suomi the removal of a nuisance wolf in Piikkiö in Saturday has heated the conversation in social media.

According to police all comments haven't been appropriate or based in facts. Sharpest comments in social media have even threatened hunters participating in the hunt.

Police says that the decision to remove the wolf was made by a ranking officer of the police force and a consultation was made with a liaison person of the game administration. The hunt was led by the police. The action was based upon a law. Addition to police, hunt was participated by Large Game Executive Assistance-persons, in direct order by police.

During the week there had been several sightings of the wolf in a populous area of Lieto. The individual had been wandering around during Saturday in yards of apartment buildings, jogging tracks and been as close as 5 meters from a person. During the daytime aforementioned area had lots of people moving around with children and pets.

The area in which the wolf was shot was limited by the police inside of roads 110, Helsinki motorway, and the population centers of Runko and Makarla. If the wolf would have left the area the hunt would have been stopped. The animal was circling around in the limited area during the whole 3 hour period the hunt took.

The natural behavior of a wild animal and thus well being is avoiding humans or his settlements. The police reminds that sedating, capturing, handling, banishing or relocating a large predator is always very difficult. Banishing has been tried in the Varsinais-Suomi region with little or not effect.

Preliminary exam by the veterinarian revealed that the individual was thin and seem to suffer from a mange and the risk of rabies must be taken in to account.  These things will be ascertained by the Evira.

A large predator or another wild animal that comes and stays in populated areas is always  causing safety risk of some level. Safety risk posed by predators in populated areas is a threat that falls under state's responsibilities.

Police has to make situation and value assessment in the field and their actions have to reflect the true nature of the situation and it can't cause more damage of threat than the situation at hand.

The police reminds in their bulletin that the decisions made by the police can be questioned, but it is inappropriate to defame or threaten people giving assistance to the police.

According to the police, in this situation safety and well being of humans was considered higher priority based on the behavior and the condition of the animal.

Translated from an article of Turun Sanomat by Niina Perkkiö

Original article in Finnish: http://www.ts.fi/uutiset/turun+seutu/855791/Poliisi+Hairikkosuden+kaato+Piikkiossa+johtanut+uhkailuihin

News update

Hi all. I know I promised to talk about the wolf-dog hybridism in my next post, but it requires more research and time than I anticipated, so I'll just give you an update on some news on wolves here in Finland.

To this day, the 7th of February, 37 wolves have been shot during the trial management hunt.
Sex ratio is 22 males and 15 females. Shortest distance between a spot where wolf was shot and a residential house was approx. 150 meters ( 164 yards) and the longest distance was 8,6 km (5,3 miles)

43% of the wolves were shot less than 1 km ( 0,62 miles) from a residential house.

The amount of wolves killed by orders of the police is currently 8. Latest was from yesterday when a young male was shot after several visits to yards. This individual is probably injured since blood was discovered from the spot he had laid down. The number 7 was a alpha-female of Tolkkee pack. Police and hunters had tried to haze her away from yards for a full week before kill order was given since hazing did not work. She was alone, either driven away by younger members of the pack or in search for new mate since her mate was found dead in May. Cause of death was ruptured urinary bladder.

A pack of wolves has prowled inside a town of Mellilä in Loimaa munincipality, Varsinais-Suomi.
The pack has visited the town in the night between Tuesday and Wednesday. The local large carnivore liason person told that wolf tracks were found around a dog cage. There had been 2 sets of large and 4 sets of smaller prints on the snow. He said it was a shame that there we no feces in the area which would have given DNA to find out from which pack these animals were from. The nearby school has been informed of the wolves presence and school has informed the parents of the children living in the area. The liason person notes that this was not the first time wolves have been known to visit the town area. In the nearby rock crushing plant wolves were caught by surveillance cameras three weeks ago.
He continues that from towns of Oripäänkangas, Niinijoki and Vilvainen have constantly given reports of 1 or more wolves for at least 3 times a week.

Depredations

First an update: In Friday evening 23 wolves had been killed. It might be that one of the wolves is actually a wolf-dog hybrid and since it was apparently pup from spring it means that his siblings and  one or both parents are hybrids too. Otherwise this individual looks like a wolf, but he has a white tip on his tail, like foxes and half of the nails in his forepaws are white and all nails in his hindpaws are white.

I'll concentrate to the hybrid dilemma in my next post.

The amount of depredations last year is larger than ever after the wolves were eradicated from Finland sometime in 1920's. In recent years depredations on cattle has increased tremendously. In years before tighter protections took place an attack towards cattle wasn't even a yearly event. Dogs were those who ended dead in the woods or in the yard.

Last year 154 sheep, 15 cows, 45 dogs and a pony were killed by wolves.

Number of attacks were as follows: Sheep 22 attacks, cows 10 attacks, 1 attack on pony and 45 attacks on dogs. 

Map of depredations

Unfortunately GoogleMaps doesn't have a sheep marker, so I had to settle to a cow in both sheep and cow depredations. If you want to see the map for yourself, here is the link: Susien uhrit

Lammas/uuhi/karitsa = Sheep/Ewe/Lamb

Lehmä/vasikka/hieho = Cow/calf/heifer

Koira/metsästyskoira = Dog/hunting dog

Poni = Pony

In previous years amount of depredations that were compensated by government were following:

2010:

Dogs 23, Sheep 18 (18+ animals), Cows 1 (1 animal), Horse 1 (1 animal)

2011: 

Dogs 27, Sheep 7 (22+ animals), Cows 4 (5 animals), Horse 0

2012:

Dogs 48, Sheep 6 (28+ animals), Cows 4 (10 animals), Horse 4 (4 animals)

2013:

Dogs 24, Sheep 13 ( 58+ animals), Cows 3 (5 animals), Horse 0

2014:

Dogs 34, Sheep 16 (68 animals), Cows 8 (11 animals), Horse 0

The huge increase in depredations is likely the reason why our Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry gave an decree to have quota of 46 wolves instead of 39 proposed to them. 

At the moment there is an police permit in Juuka to remove a wolf that has been frequently visiting yards in these past few days.

Update and wolf's historical burden

Update on the wolf hunt: 19 wolves have been killed by 26th. Of these, unfortunately 2 were alphas. One female was shot accidentally since instructions said to target the smallest ones, who are pups. Unfortunately the alpha female was petite and with two large males, so as per instructed, hunter chose the smallest of the three that came to his sight. It was only after wolf was shot hunter discovered that the animal had been the alpha female, since collared wolves are given also ear tags. Her collar had dropped off in the summer so hunter was in belief that the individual he targeted was a pup.
Second alpha was a collared male, but since his coat covered the collar, hunter did not see this and thus chose it instead of waiting another one to target.
In Eno, a weakened wolf was also shot. This individual was emaciated, feeding itself from bird feeders in yards and was seen several times near a school. It was even in touching distance from a child walking a dog. Police decided to give permit to shoot this individual to end it's sufferings, since it was clear that it would not live much longer and would otherwise die of starvation.

Throughout the world wolves carry a historical burden of their ancestors. In Finland, wolves killed a large number of people between 1700-1881. After a series of child killings in Varsinais-Suomi area, a professional wolf hunters "lukashi" were called from Russia to help. After they had hunted few wolves the attacks towards people ended. So did wolves tale in Finland for a long time, since methods learned were taken in to action and wolves were eradicated from most of the country. Last wolves were killed somewhere around 1920s. By estimates using number of wolves killed annually, it is thought that during the killings there were 600-800 wolves in Finland.

In the following map, 171 adults and children that were killed by wolves are represented. Their names, ages and the day of death. These are taken from parish registers between 1700 and 1881.

Map of wolf killed humans 1700-1881

Map is courtesy of Kaj Granlund and most of the data is retrieved from parish registries by Jouko Teperi.

The last person to survive from wolf attack was  Ida Kustaantytär Laakso, who was attacked 22th of  October 1880. During this time she was 9 years. She was saved by her scarf and a neighbor who came to help and drove the wolf away with an axe. Ida suffered severe lacerations and bore scars rest of her live. She died in 1960 at the age of 88. 

Update on the wolf hunt and about human settlements

On the official page which tracks the kills made during 2016 test hunt on wolves has currently 11 cases. According to the information I've gathered from news and social media, at least 3 more are killed that don't yet show on the official page. (If you are interested in following the page, here is the link: Saalisseuranta).
The page shows the exact location where wolf was killed. As one can see from the map or from these pictures below, the places are quite close to houses.

In this first picture, the distance to settlements and field on the left side of the map is approx 2,5 miles.

In this picture, which is from the Kainuu area, the site of the hunt is about 4,3 miles from closest human settlements. At the moment this is the farthest distance between settlements and hunt I was able to find out. (The closest houses are those two black squares above the text Kaksipirttinen, north-west from the hunting site.)

So to the second point in the headline: human settlements.

Our country is 130,128 sq miles in size. Little bit smaller than i.e. Montana. Population density is approximately 46 people per sq mile. Little bit more than in Maine or Oregon. What makes Finland bit quirky is how the land is populated. Instead of population clusters with few inhabitants in between and lots of wilderness for predators to roam, Finland is settled almost in every single nook and cranny one can find. This leaves little room for animals such as wolves to roam far from people. In the pic below you can see that Finland is quite thoroughly settled, only the northern most part, Lapland, is having more ideal conditions. Lapland however is dedicated to reindeer herding, so Lapland and some areas in Kainuu and Pohjois-Pohjanmaa regions are not suitable habitat for a wolf.

Due the fact that the reindeer herding area takes almost 30% of Finland, wolves must live in the more densely populated areas and thus they end up having troubles with humans.(Or humans having trouble with wolves, depending which way one wants to look at it).

Since Finland is settled in the way it is, wolves seem to get more easily habituated to humans than in i.e. USA. Here wolves can't really live their lives without encountering human presence. In the Varsinais-Suomi region there are 2 packs and 1 little bit norther in Satakunta region, wolves can't physically get further away from humans than 1,2 to 1,8 miles. These packs live right in the middle of humans and thus have thoroughly habituated. Whether or not hunting these individuals will de-habituate them or not will be seen in future.

Of the current situation

Today, 24th of January 2016 a second day of two-year test hunt is over. So far information regarding the hunt is scarce, most likely due the fact that hunting parties aren't required to inform their success until the next business-day, so tomorrow the reports start coming in. Second reason could be, that recently there was a violent outburst toward a hunter who put down a wolf injured in a collision with a car. Hunter got his car's windshield smashed and threatening messages from angry wolf advocates. Hunters don't want to go thru the same and endanger their families so they don't want to be in public.

But back to the topic, the current wolf hunt.

In 2015 a new wolf management plan was approved and it's controversial 2 year hunting test began. The idea behind the hunt is to de-habituate wolves, thus leading lesser need for poaching and giving wolf a status of valuable game animal instead of vermin. Last year 24 permits were issued out of which 19 were able to be used due appeals stopping hunt in some areas. With these 19 permits, 17 individuals were taken. Out of these 17, one was alfa female, others young members or pups of the pack. Remainder of last year (hunt took place in early spring) the packs that lost a member that was from an earlier litter became shy of humans and stopped visiting yards. The packs that lost a pup born previous spring (less than 1 year old) did not change their behavior.

Now the second year of this test has started, with 46 permits and thus far none of the appeals made have stopped hunting. As far as I have gotten any intel, 2 wolves from 2 packs are killed and one injured. 

The hunting itself is tightly regulated. Only 50 men at a time are allowed to take part and each of them have to be reported to authorities before hunt can begin. During the hunt there is a hunting leader and two vice leaders to ensure safety and terms of the hunt are met. It's recommended that young, problem causing individuals are taken, but if a hunter does kill an alfa during a hunt, it's not considered breaking the rules.

In most cases there is one permit per pack, in some cases with big packs or special conditions, there are 2 permits/pack. In Kainuu region with most wolves per square mile (square km) in the country one pack has been given 3 permits. All of the packs given permits have reproduced successfully in 2015.

The last spring's estimate of approx. of 35 packs and 220-245 wolves. Before the hunt estimate on amount of packs was 34-38 packs. After the hunt is finished in 21st of February (or all permits are used) a new estimate will be made. Most likely the number will rise close or even over 300 individuals.



UPDATE: At least 4 confirmed kills. Two of these were from so called Köyliö pack that lives in one of the most densely populated areas. Other two were of a neighboring pack in Varsinais-Suomi and way norther from a pack of Haapajärvi-Kärsämäki area.