Predators
in Finland
The unknown
wolverine
The attitudes
of reindeer owner ´s towards wolverines is another story completely.
Even though the wolverine is mainly carrion animal, it also hunts reindeer
for nutriment. Especially in the area of reindeer husbandry the human-
being is in addition to wolves the biggest enemy of the wolverine. People
and wolverines live side by side peacefully outside the area of reindeer
husbandry. One reason for this is that wolverine is very a shy animal and
it is rarely seen by people. Because wolverine is unknown it has been persecuted
by people. The fact is that these beasts have never threatened people or
animals owned by people outside the area of reindeer husbandry. Wolverines
were killed off completely in the northwest areas of Finland by 1880´s
and by the 20th century there were wolverines living only in Lapland, Northern
Kainuu and Northern Karelia. Outside of these areas there were only few
wolverines wondering around now and then. In the 1950´s the distribution
of wolverines covered also Kainuu and Kuusamo but by the year 1971 wolverines
were hunted close to extinction.There were 40 wolverines in Finland at
that time. The government stopped paying the killing reward in 1975 and
two years later wolverine became preserved below the area of reindeer husbandry.
Preservation did not help as it took place in areas which were no more
inhabited by wolverines. By the year 1982 wolverine became preserved in
the whole Finland, but it was still possible to get a license to kill a
wolverine in the area of reindeer husbandry. According to the most pessimistic
estimations, there were only about 20 animals left at that time. There
were years during which no wolverines were born because most of the wolverines
were living near the eastern border. The future of the wolverines in Finland
still looks very unstable and the population behind the eastern border
has also become smaller. In the 1980’s the number of wolverines was something
between 50 and 80, but now the population seems to be growing. According
to the estimation made in 1995 there are about 110 wolverines in Finland.
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