The Finnish government's aim this winter is to set quotas for wolf hunting. Hunting lease agreements specify which animal species a forest owner may lease hunting rights for to hunting clubs. Hunting rights in Finland are tied to land ownership. The owner of the land and forest has the right to decide who may hunt on their land and which species permitted by law may be hunted.
The Finnish Parliament has planned to decide whether, at the beginning of next year, wolf hunting may begin on the basis of regional quotas. The changes to the Act have provoked debate, particularly after Parliament's Agriculture and Forestry Committee unexpectedly included bears and lynx in the list of species to which hunting quotas will apply, in a report published a week before Christmas.
If the new hunting quota model comes into force, will forest owners still have the right to decide on wolf hunting?
"Yes, only those species permitted under the hunting lease agreement will be huntable. The hunting quotas will not change that," said Timo Leskinen, head of the Agriculture and Hunting Department at the Central Union of Agricultural Producers of Finland (MTK). The usual practice is for the forest owner to lease hunting rights to a hunting club or group. Elk hunting permits, for example, are granted only for forest areas larger than 1,000 hectares.
In a hunting lease agreement the forest owner can choose whether to lease hunting rights for, say, all types of hunting, or only for deer, wild boar and predators. The agreement can specify which animal species the lease does not cover.
"It is still too early to start thinking about such things."
If quota hunting is introduced, will it affect which animal species a landowner leases hunting rights for? If a forest owner has permitted only deer and wild boar hunting in the hunting lease agreement, rather than the hunting of large predators, will quota hunting of wolves not apply on their land?
"It is too early to start considering such things, because the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has not yet discussed the matter," a ministry representative replies by email. The ministry stresses that this question must be settled by government decree before any regional quota hunting begins. In addition, the amendments to Finland's Hunting Act must come into force when the decision is taken.
Old hunting lease agreements are worth renewing
Timo Leskinen urges landowners to check whether their hunting lease agreements set out hunting rights for both large predators and wild boar. In old lease agreements that have been in force for a long time, these provisions have often been overlooked.
"If an old lease agreement needs to be renewed, it is advisable to conclude a new one using the template drawn up jointly by MTK and the Finnish Hunters' Association. The general terms and conditions attached to the agreement have also been thought through with the landowner's interests in mind," T. Leskinen emphasises.
Where there are deer and roe deer, there are always wolves too
Following the Agriculture and Forestry Committee's decisions, the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation announced that it would lodge a complaint about the Hunting Act with the European Commission. This will happen if the Hunting Act enters into force in its currently proposed form. The association's chair, Hanna Halmīnpē, points out that it is precisely because of human influence that the country's largest wolf population has now formed in south-western Finland.
The rise in wolf numbers was driven mainly by an abundance of deer and roe deer, which make excellent prey for predators and in turn greatly encourage the growth of Finland's wolf population. According to H. Halmīnpē, the unusually large deer population is in fact sustained by feeding the animals near settlements and areas of arable crops.
"So it is to a large extent a situation created by people themselves that wolves are found on the outskirts of settlements, particularly in the south-western region of Finland, where the deer feeding sites are located. The wolves make use of this accordingly and actively hunt deer in these areas."
The situation shows how many-sided the problem is. Finland's hunters, together with forest owners, need to address it as quickly as possible and take responsibility, so as not to harm animal populations.