Mari Pohja-Mykrä

The good bad wolf—wolf evaluation reveals the roots of the Finnish wolf conflict

This article focuses on the roots of the Finnish wolf conflict by using stakeholder evaluations of the wolf as a tool. The recent growth of the wolf population has highlighted stakeholders’ contradictory objectives and revealed a conflict between the two main stakeholders, conservationists and hunters, in wolf management. The question of hunting emerges as the core of the conflict. The negative evaluation of the wolf by hunters reflects a competitive situation, which is typical of the historical development of wolf management in Finland. In areas with the most abundant wolf populations, hunters view the wolf most negatively. This study clearly demonstrates that the Finnish wolf conflict is rooted in the values of modern society and carries a long historical, practical and ecological background in which humans and wolves compete over resources, mainly the moose. The conflict between hunters and conservationists in wolf management is connected to the appreciation of moose as game and stems from competition between humans and wolves over their prey and the historical presence or absence of the wolf.

A history of organized persecution and conservation of wildlife: species categorizations in Finnish legislation from medieval times to 1923

Attitudes towards wild animals are reflected through history in various categorizations of species. For example, changes in the useful-harmful dichotomy of species have affected policy decisions during the long history of organized pest persecution as well as during the much more recent rise of nature conservation. The first hunting legislation in Finland dates back more than 650 years, to times when the country belonged to the Kingdom of Sweden. From those times to the early 20th century various acts of law exhibited a marked variation in placing species into useful and harmful categories. The dichotomy seems to be based upon fundamental ecological interactions between humans and other species. We show that the varying interest in pest perse- cution as well as important conservation milestones have been associated with contemporary human-animal rela- tions such as the attitudes of decision makers and laymen towards wild animals, and the public awareness of species conservation issues.

Back-Calculation of Large Carnivore Populations in Finland in 1865–1915

We estimated population abundances of the bear, lynx, wolf and wolverine in Finland in 1865–1915 by combining official bounty statistics with verified knowledge on annual intrinsic growth and mortality rates of these species. We used an annual backwards iteration method for all of these species, starting from a systematically-adjusted population size in 1915. According to our results, there had been approximately 1000 bears and an equal number of wolves in Finland until their decline started around 1875. As for lynx, it appears that its population increased markedly in the first quarter of our study period, but seemed not to have exceeded 3500 in the 19th century. Concurrently with the assumed strong growth of the lynx population, a marked increase took place in sheep and goats killed by large carnivores. The number of wolverines prior to 1885 appears to have been varying between 300 and 600.