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.