Many different authorities, organisations and ordinary citizens interested in large carnivores participate in the conservation and management of predator populations. Well defined and planned hunting of large carnivores forms a part of successful population management and conservation efforts.
Finland is bound by both national and international agreements to maintain healthy predator populations. Minimum viable population (MVP) is a concept used by zoologists to describe the minimum number of animals in a population that allows the species to survive into the future without going extinct. If the population of a species is too low, it is probably brought down by a combination of factors, even if everything seems to be fine on the surface.
Wolf. Photo: Eero Kemilä
The number of lynxes and bears in Finland is so high that the species will probably remain a part of Finnish nature for generations to come. The number of wolves and wolverines, however, is so low that they would have already disappeared without conservation efforts and animals migrating into the country. A few dozen wolverines migrate into Finland each year. The Finnish wolf population is still completely reliant on wolves migrating from Russia, even though wolves are already breeding in our country.
The methods of large carnivore conservation include research, raising awareness, influencing attitudes, transplantations and prevention and compensation of damages.
Finnish large carnivores are endangered because of their very small and limited populations.
The basic idea behind animal transplantation is to restore a viable population to an area where the species has previously disappeared from in a manner that does not limit or prevent the free movement of animals.
Large carnivores elicit strong reactions from people. On the one hand they are feared and hated, and on the other there is a desire to protect them and they are viewed as symbols of the wilderness. In reality, most people know fairly little of our large carnivores.
The views held by Finns are sometimes conflicting when it comes to the population management and conservation of large carnivores. In order to piece together these different views, national management plans are created.
For the first time, Metsähallitus wilderness supervision has monitored the results of its work in real time throughout the year. The new system reveals that 368 people violated the law while in nature, and 169 people were caught without necessary permits.