Unfair aim. Hunting lobby wants protected species to be kept as fair game. Wolves, lynxes and bears still in hunters' sites despite EU directive and falling numbers

BBC Wildife Magazine January, 1998 Page 28

by Riku Cajander (Finland) Even though the European Union's Habitats Directive specifically protects large carnivorous animals, one of the EU's newest members, Finland, is still issuing permits to kill bears and lynxes and allowing a five-month open season on wolves in Lapland. Finland's ministry of agriculture -- which, for this autumn and winter, has issued 108 bear permits and 118 lynx ones -- claims the Finnish populations of carnivores are big enough to withstand hunting. But the figures are based on observations made by hunters, who stand to get more permits the more animals they report. Bears, lynxes and wolves have full protection under the EU Habitats Directive. The only exception is an individual considered to be a serious danger to people or property, and even then the killing has to be supervised. But this hasn't prevented the 'legal' slaughter in the past five years of more than 300 lynxes, 250 bears and 50 wolves. Of those, only about a dozen were threatening livestock, causing damage or otherwise annoying humans. The rest were killed for sport. One factor that legitimates the sport is the belief -- encouraged by both hunters and the media -- that wolves are a danger to people and a threat to populations of other wildlife, particularly elk. Any bear or wolf seen near a human settlement is automatically considered a troublemaker. Last August, for example, a two-year-old male bear was found wandering in the south, near Helsinki. He became a media sensation, and the local urban public cheered him on (he was behaving peacefully, and the only damage he had done was to some beehives). Nevertheless, the bear was killed by a local policeman -- in the interest, he said, of public safety. BACKGROUND The Killing Facts The majority of Finland's large carnivores live near the Russian border. Most hunting takes place on Finnish forest and park service national land; it is also allowed in most protected areas. Killing of wolves and lynxes in winter is drastically disturbing their courtship and breeding and breaking up packs of wolves. About 5,000 men participate in the killing of large carnivores -- 2 percent of hunters. ACTION Letters of Concern to: Minister Kalevi Hemilä, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Kirjaamo, PL. 232, 00171 Helsinki, Finland Until recently, a steady flow of lynxes and bears across the border from the Russian region of Karelia allowed the Finnish populations to withstand heavy hunting and poaching. But since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Karelia has been extensively logged, and both legal and illegal hunting there has greatly increased -- the hunting safari is now a popular Russian tourist attraction. As a result, the flow across the border has slowed, and the Finnish populations can no longer take the hunting pressure. There has been a flow of wolves, too, but in northern Finland, most are killed by reindeer keepers and hunters. Though the yearly wolf kill among Lapland's 300,000 reindeer is only 100-400, the hunter's aim is to eliminate all wolves from northern Finland. One effect is to cut off the immigration of wolves into Norway and Sweden, whose own wolves are few and far between and need fresh genetic input. Currently, Finland's wolf population is about 100, mainly lone animals shifting back and forth across the Russian border. In Finland, the three predators' legal problem is that, while all other endangered species come under the protection of the environment ministry, they are controlled by the agriculture ministry, which is influenced by the hunting lobby, and are classified as game animals. But their impact on agriculture -- ie, reindeer herding and cattle -- is infinitesimal, and conservationists are now calling for Finland to stop supporting what is essentially sport hunting and to accept the law of the union it has voted to join.

Comments to: Nancy 17-02-1998