Planned wolf hunt threatens Kuhmo wildlife tourism

A proposed wolf hunt in Kuhmo could threaten a wildlife tourism business built around photographing predators, entrepreneur Lassi Rautiainen told Yle.

The Finnish Wildlife Agency has proposed hunting 109 wolves across Finland from early December. Its proposal includes 15 wolves in three areas in Kainuu, including six in Kivikiekki, an area in Kuhmo where Rautiainen’s photography hides are located. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry will decide the final hunting quotas.

“If the wolf pack is killed, tourists will stop visiting here,” Rautiainen said. The proposed hunt in Kivikiekki is justified by close family ties: the agency says the breeding pair in the local pack are full siblings.

Rautiainen says more than 1,000 clients from about 30 countries visit his photography hides each year. His company, Wild Nature Finland, employs eight to 10 people, and most of its customers come from abroad.

About 20 businesses in Finland offer opportunities to watch and photograph large predators. Most are near the eastern border, particularly in Kainuu. Bears in the region go into hibernation in October or November, after which wolves become the main attraction at Rautiainen’s hides.

Research on how feeding affects predators’ behaviour away from feeding sites is limited. Ilpo Kojola, an emeritus professor and visiting expert at the Natural Resources Institute Finland, said GPS-collar studies have found that bears that regularly visit feeding sites have smaller home ranges than other bears. Easily available food means they need to travel less to find food, though it makes up only a small part of their diet.

Feeding changes how predators behave at the sites, Kojola said. Bears may approach the person who feeds them and come close, while keeping more distance from strangers. There is little research on whether their response to people also changes away from feeding sites, he said, partly because studying it would require experiments that could put people at risk.

At Rautiainen’s hides, two bears and two wolves came to eat fish-processing waste and dog food as visiting photographers took pictures. Some animals stayed to feed, while others briefly stopped before moving away.