LARS MAGNUS HAGELSTAM

Göksgränden 12, 02580 Sjundeå

09-2628166, 041.5453803

magnus.hagelstam@kolumbus.fi

 

 

European Commission                             

General Directorate/Environment      

B-1049  Brussels                     

Belgium                               

 

 

Sjundeå 27.2.2006      

 

 

Dear Sir,

 

Referring to my e-letter of February 8th, (download from http://personal.inet.fi/luonto/mikael.broo/ -> Wolf policy based on lies!) I enclose papers by professor emeritus Valerius Geist (PO Box 1294, Station A, PORT ALBERNI, BC, V9Y 7M2, Canada, e-mail: kendulf@shaw.ca) of Calgary university, with whom I am in correspondence. Professor Geist has spent a lifetime studying the behavior of large mammals and through observing them at close range he has gained experience of how they habituate to humans and of the problems this causes.

 

Professor Geist explains wolf (and bear) attacks on livestock, pets and humans in the context of their  normal behavior and has a view on how to manage a wolf population so that attacks are avoided.

 

Below I explain why normal wolf behavior inevitably will lead to attacks on humans in Finland in the near future if the national authorities continue interpreting directive 1992/43 the way they do. I also explain why a statement from the Commission that the safety and well-being of citizens has precedence over the protection of wolves would save lives.

 

PROFESSOR GEIST ON THE HABITUATION OF WILDLIFE

 

Professor Geist writes in the attached paper “Habituation of wildlife to humans: research tool, key to naturalistic recording and common curse for wildlife and hapless humans”

 

“Moreover, while in my career as an animal behaviorist I had to worry about habituation only while in the field, I have to worry about it in retirement on a daily basis. We live in a rural area close to a large provincial park and the matter of how to handle numerous black bears, which are attracted to orchards and salmon streams close to our residence, so as to minimize killing is a daily family concern. We also live with wolves. My wife and I have had to handle one attack by a black bear male, I have been brazenly investigated several times by wolves and my wife has been harassed twice by wolves, once on our very doorstep!

However, not every animal that tolerates humans is habituated. Some may already be tame, that is, engaged in predictable, voluntary reciprocal interactions with humans.(..) Unfortunately, habituated animals are potentially dangerous, because habituation is a state of unconsummated interest on the part of the animal, expressing itself as tolerance of humans.”

 

Professor Geist describes the behavior of the above mentioned wolves in the attached letter to Dr. Erich Klinghammer, “Vancouver Island Wolves”. It closely resembles the behavior of wolves in Finland today.

 

“To my regret I realized that I made a serious error by assuming that the European, but especially the Russian, experience with wolves, was irrelevant to an understanding of North American wolves. The experiences Russians and others have had with wolf attacks (Heptner et al. 1967, Will Graves, in preparation.) can be repeated with North American wolves – under similar circumstances! These circumstances are:

 

(a) Severe depletion of natural prey.

 

(b) Followed by wolves searching for alternative food sources among human habitations.

 

(c) The brazen behavior of wolves was due to the wolves being undeterred by and habituated to inefficiently armed humans (or ineffectual use of weapons or outright protection of wolves),

 

(d) Wolves tested and killed livestock; the tests resulted in docked tails and ears of cattle.

 

(e) Wolves shifted to preying on pets and livestock, especially on dogs. (In our neighborhood one or several wolves attacked dogs despite the physical intervention by their owners which the wolves more or less ignored). Common behavior among wolves in Finland.

 

(f) The wolves commenced deliberate, drawn-out exploration of humans be such on foot or on horseback, (this is not merely visual and olfactory, but included – weeks before these wolves attacked a human – the licking, nipping and tearing of clothing. Beatty 2000). For instance Raila Ahonen in 2005.

 

(g) This was followed by wolves confronting humans. For instance Veikko Kokko in 2005.

 

(h)  Wolves attack humans.

 

My wife and I and our neighbors experienced between 1999 and 2003 stages (a) to (g) when a wolf pack settled close to us in an agricultural area on central Vancouver Island (Geist 2003). These wolves were terminating habituation by seeking out humans and their habitation, killing and maiming pets and livestock and inspecting and confronting humans. No attacks on humans materialized by “our” wolves after they began approaching us for they were shot. Others were trapped by a predator control officer. Stage (h), attack on humans, was done not by the pack close to us, but by two wolves from another Vancouver Island pack. Two wolves from a pack of seven attacked a man in a campground on July 2nd 2000, leading to severe injuries. The pack had become habituated and then, apparently, food-conditioned to the camp ground on Vargas Island just off Tofino, British Columbia (Beatty, 2000). These wolves for weeks prior had not merely approached people, but had sniffed and licked visitors and performed hesitant attacks and were warded off. They attacked the camper at night while he was sleeping in the open. He was saved by fellow campers, but sustained injuries severe enough requiring hospitalization and some 50 stitches to close the wounds.

 

HABITUATION PROCESSES ENDING WITH MAN-EATING

 

The cases of man-eating wolves I mentioned in my e-letter of February 8th have occurred where hunting has been absent or completely inefficient.

 

1.

The Kirov/Vjatka cases 1944 – 1953. After the departure of all hunters and guns to the front in 1939-41, wolves started habituating as described above. They attacked a human in September, 1944 and then proceeded with systematic man-eating. The cases are described in detail by Michail Pavlov, in Swedish on pages 26-35 of Elis Pålsson’s booklet “Vargens Näringssök och Människan”, download from www.locomail.com/vargen -> wolf.pdf.

 

2.

Dr. Antti Lappalainen found no human victims to wolves in northern Finland while over half of the 193 victims occurred in Carelia.

 

In northern Finland, wolves have always been hunted down on ski - an extremely efficient method. This form of hunting was never practiced in southern Finland. Instead huge wolf hunts involving hundreds of men were arranged by the municipal authorities and were mostly futile – the wolves were familiar with the hunts and simply moved away for a day or two when they heard the noise of the men gathering.

 

The area by far worst affected by man-eating wolves was the Carelian Isthmus and there the municipality of Kivennapa where wolves killed 24 persons between 1787 and 1850. The population was 3.137 adults 1729. In 1721, Sweden seceded the area to Russia and the forests of Kivennapa were awarded to a rifle factory which prohibited all hunting and tree felling. The prohibition remained in force until 1812 when the Carelian Isthmus was returned to the autonomous Russian Grand Duchy of Finland by tsar Alexander I as a friendly gesture after Sweden had seceded Finland to Russia in 1809. The population being unarmed and inexperienced, the man-eating continued until 1850.

 

3.

Professor Geist comments a recent fatal wolf attack in Canada:

 

“A 22-year-old third-year geological engineering student at the University of Waterloo by the name of Kenton Joel Carnegie, was killed by wolves at Points North Landing, Wollaston Lake area, in Northern Saskatchewan on November the 8th. This is apparently not far from where Mr. Fred Desjarlais was recently attacked and wounded by a wolf. There are also unreported recent attacks by wolves, one of which I was informed on in some detail. The Carnegie case is unique in that it is the first direct fatality from a wolf attack. There have been people bitten by rabid wolves and killed, but some how such kills "do not count". After all it's the rabies, not the bite that killed.

 

A remarkable aspect is that the victim was interviewed a few days earlier by a biologist, who reported, when interviewed by the Saskatoon Star Phoenix (Nov 14th) that Mr. Carnegie was elated that he saw wolves close up. Neither of the two were aware that the appearance of tame, inquisitive wolves is a sign of extreme danger. Consequently, the first requirement is that we inform the general public, but especially sportsmen that when they see tame, inquisitive wolves, that they get out of there (or be prepared to shoot).

 

Why tame, inquisitive wolves are an extreme danger is explained as follows:

When wolves are well-fed, they are - extremely - shy, and avoid humans.

In my days in the northern wilderness I have seen wolves panic repeatedly when  they crossed my track or got my scent.   We have other observations indicating that wolves are very cautious. When they run out of food, wolves begin to explore alternative prey. They do so very cautiously, and over an extended time period. This exploration for an alternative food source is manifest as wolves (become) increasingly tame and inquisitive. I have been investigated three times in the open by wolves; the same wolves threatened my wife twice, once on the door step. Other Vancouver Island wolves went one step further and licked and nipped at people (in a camp site) weeks before attacking. However, the bottom line is, when wolves appear tame and follow you and investigate you it's with lunch in mind.

 

The argument that this could hardly be danger as wolves so rarely attack people is fallacious.”

 

NON-LETHAL DE-HABITUATION – DETERRENTS AND SCARING

 

In the attached paper on habituation, professor Geist writes:

 

“Consequently, we can make bears meticulously shun humans if they encounter systematically humans that stalk and follow them, and which in encounters act boldly. This suggests that inefficient hunting of bears makes bears very weary, so that they avoid humans. If so, then hunting inefficiently by many hunters over long time spans, generates a protection for both the bears and the public. Such hunting generates a free public good, which I would label “the freedom of the woods”, which allows the general public to enjoy the out of doors without fear of predatory attacks.

 

We can make for gray wolves a similar case as for bears, in that lone wolves must be exquisitely sensitive to being stalked by other wolves, as territorial wolves will hunt down and wound or kill strangers. We are well aware that hunting per se makes wolves and bears very weary. However, we can exploit this in a much more efficient systematic manner. Ironically, we can use our innate capacity for stalking to generate panic in predators, for the lasting benefit of both!”

 

He stresses, however, that such methods can succeed only when the predators have an ample source of food and have never acquired the experience of finding food close to humans. Only death will keep a predator permanently away from a food source once it has found it.

 

“To succeed in conserving predators we must not forget the precious lesson of the past century, especially that pertaining to wolves. We experienced in North America that a low predator to prey ration leads to large, shy wolves that shun contact with people. North America’s ungulate populations were recovering in the 20th century from near extinction in the 19th. Predator populations are expected to follow after a lag, and once they do, wolves are expected to increasingly act like their Eurasian counter parts when such run out of prey. Taken to its final conclusion it means that reintroduced wolves within national parks will need to be controlled so as to retain large prey base, otherwise wolves will depopulate the prey in the park and move beyond causing far-reaching grief. The Eurasian experience indicates that wolves and settled landscapes are incompatible. The North American experience would suggest that they are compatible, but only if natural prey is very abundant relative to the number of wolves. And this means hands on management of predators.

 

The attempts being made by Scandinavian predator research institutes to recondition sheep and dog eating wolves to a shy life in the wilderness by scaring them are a testimony to ignorance of animal behavior. See: http://www.siste.no/Innenriks/article1925286.ece

 

SHY WOLVES IN CANADA, BRAZEN ONES IN FINLAND. WHY?

 

Professor Geist briefly described wolf management in Canada in an e-mail to me:

 

“All North American trappers are armed, but then so are the rural citizen. And the fate of inquisitive wolves was, the as now, here where I live: they are shot locally by rural residents or hunters, or trapped and destroyed by a predator control officer. There remain plenty of shy, careful wolves which are so difficult to sight as to be virtually unhuntable.”

 

Such shyness of wolves is rare in Finland.

 

Wolves come to Finland from Russian Carelia where they since long suffer from an acute shortage of game animals. Wolves in Russian Carelia brazenly attack dogs and livestock in spite of hunting with all means except poison being permitted all year. A few years ago, a wolf even took a dog in the staircase on the second floor of an apartment building.

 

The president of the Republic of Carelia recently visited Finland and gave an interview to the daily Maaseudun Tulevaisuus, organ of the farmers’ association MTK on 24.2.2006:

 

“The wolf population of Russian Carelia is growing extremely fast. The predator problem already worries the supreme leadership of the republic because the wolves have eaten most of the moose of Carelia.

 

“More and more of the wolves wander off to the better food sources of Finland”, warns the leader of the Republic of Carelia Sergei Katanandov who visited Finland during the weekend.

 

According to the latest statistics there are about 400 wolves in Russian Carelia. The number is double that of the wolf population of Finland.

 

Note 1: The figure 200 wolves in Finland is a “minimum population figure”, published by the F.G.F.R.I., Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute. The real figure is probably double that - the predator contact persons of the eastern management area counted 299 wolves in winter 2005/06. The F.G.F.R.I. seems to stop at nothing to hide the fact that the wolf population in Finland is exploding. Mr. Ronkainen of the F.G.F.R.I. recently issued a statement to the leading daily Helsingin Sanomat that there are two wolves in the municipality of Kuhmoinen while 14 increasingly brazen wolves roam the area. When the local Director of the Game Management District Mr. Unto Sarvala (unto.sarvala@pp.inet.fi, +358- 400-900862) called the superior of Mr. Ronkainen, Mr. Kojola, and complained, Mr. Kojola apologized privately but never publicly.

 

The sudden increase in the wolf population is due to a decrease in hunting.

 

“Before, a person who had killed a wolf was rewarded with a licence to fell one moose, and in those times wolf hunting was economically rewarding. Today there are no moose left and only a small premium is paid. It does not motivate to go wolf hunting”, explains Katanandov.”

 

Note 2: In my e-letter of February 8th, I pointed out that the Finnish border guards estimated that 113 wolves immigrated to Finland from Russian Carelia in 2004. The figure for January-May, 2005 was 137.

 

Note 3: Historically, there have been wolf times and wolf free times. After the wolves have finished off the wild ungulates as well as the available dogs and livestock, most die of hunger. The cycle has been about 50 years.

 

The wolves coming across the border from Russian Carelia and their offspring stay food-conditioned to human habitation in spite of the (so far) abundance of game animals in Finland.

 

In my e-letter of February, 8th, I wrote: “

 

“Wolves multiply fast and lose their fear of man. They routinely kill dogs in peoples’ front yard, such as in Ruokolahti, pop. 6.000, where they killed 20 dogs in the space of one year. One single wolf has killed 45 dogs in Norway. Wolves have also specialized on sheep, such as one that has killed about a hundred in Ostrobotnia and on fur animals, such as the one that bit the feet off a large number of blue foxes in their pens. Lately, wolves have been found sitting on the porch of family houses and the inhabitants usher them off with broomsticks. A pack of 15 wolves occasionally hangs around in and around the village of Kuhmo and when they are, children are not allowed out of doors and dogs plainly refuse to go out.”

 

The Director of a Game Management District Mr. Unto Sarvala (unto.sarvala@pp.inet.fi, +358- 400-900862) today described a typical slow and cautious habituation behavior of wolves in and around the village of Kuhmoinen during the past two years:

 

A wolf slips across the front yard once every week or two - unseen.

The visits get more and more frequent and more and more visible.

The wolf kills and eats the family dog.

It starts sitting on the front porch and tries to get into the cattle barn or chicken pen.

 

LACK OF DEFENCE IN FINLAND

 

All applications to fell wolves in the process of habituation have so far been turned down because of directive 1992/43 and its interpretation - except in one case when the behavior was displayed inside city limits.

 

The police force, which is legally responsible to remove dangerous animals, is unlikely to intervene. After the chief of police of Närpes in Ostrobotnia, Bo-Erik Hanses (bo-erik.hanses@narpio.poliisi.fi, +358- 40-7719454) in 2004 ordered a notorious livestock-killer wolf to be killed, conservationists complained to the Ombudsman. In the many-bottomed decision, Mr. Hanses was found to have acted within the limits of the law but the Ombudsman pointed out the limits set by directive 1992/43 and asked the ministries of agriculture and of the interior to coordinate their policies and to report to him. The reports were as many-bottomed as the decision of the Ombudsman and the police in the field has received no new instructions on the subject. Individual police officers in the field now know that having a problem wolf killed means big trouble with strong forces. Consequently, the habituation process of various wolves and wolf packs continues undisturbed and has already reached stages 4 and 5 (see above).

 

CONCLUSIONS

 

The observations and analysis of professor Geist constitute a scientifically well founded and logical framework for historical and current wolf attacks on humans and enable to predict future development.

 

It is obvious that the directive 1992/43 and its interpretation is putting the rural population of Finland in acute danger to life and limb.

 

Today, the EU countries Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary border to the territory of the former Soviet Union where the wolf situation is more or less similar to that above described in Carelia. When Romania joins, the border will reach the Black Sea. The directive 1992/43 was introduced at a time  when the EU had no border with the former Soviet Union. Holding a potentially harmful, dangerous, highly mobile and fast reproducing animal to be “a species of community interest in need of strict protection” while it is a difficult-to-control pest on the other side of a 2.000+ km long border is untenable and contrary to reason.

 

The “experts” of the Wolf Specialist Group of IUNC and affiliated scientists and NGOs that promote the protection of wolves and:

 

·         dismiss popular memory as old wives’ tales and call into question historical sources

·         assure that wolves do not attack humans

·         claim that attacks occur only under special circumstances but cannot happen here and today

·         conclude that attacks are so rare that the risk is negligible

·         blame wolf attacks on humans on other causes altogether, on wolf/dog hybrids or on abnormal individuals,

 

substitute the seeking of truth with the preaching of dogma, suppress facts contrary to the dogma and conduct research aimed only at supporting the dogma.

See for instance www.jaktjournalen.se/Reportage/05/03vargdebatt.htm

 

It has been quite a chock to me and to an increasing number of my fellow citizens to realize that the authority with which we trusted the Commission when joining the EU a decade ago, today is used to carry out policies according to these dogmas.

 

Today the affected citizens and the general is well aware of the danger of wolves, only the Commission and the conservation NGOs deny it, whereas the national authorities avoid the issue as much as they can, trying to avoid open conflict with the Commission.

 

I beg the Commission to come to your senses before your misguided policies costs citizens their lives and the EU even further political damage.

 

 

Best regards,

 

 

Magnus Hagelstam