The Administrative Court of Northern Finland has retroactively cancelled permits issued last year that would have allowed hunters to kill 10 wolves.
Last December, the Finnish Wildlife Agency granted exceptional permits (known as derogation permits) to shoot wolves in Kuhmo, near the Russian border, and Liminka, just south of Oulu.
In an interim decision, the court ruled that the permits were issued incorrectly and blocked their implementation. The permits had earlier been put on hold due to legal complaints.
The permit granted for the Saunajärvi territory concerned an entire pack of eight wolves, while the permit granted for the Liminka-Temmes area would have allowed the shooting of two individuals.
The areas are some 300km apart, with Kuhmo in the Kainuu region and the towns of Liminka and Temmes in Northern Ostrobothnia.
The permits were issued on "population maintenance" grounds, but the court declared that there was no valid reason to grant them.
In June, Finland's Natural Resources Institute (Luke) reported no growth in the country's wolf population in the previous year, estimated it at around about 290 individuals.
Precise numbers are impossible since wolves – including members of the Saunalahti pack – move freely back and forth across the Russian border.
Applicant: Process "frustrating"
"You could almost foresee this [decision]," said permit applicant Timo Klemetti, a hunter from Kuhmo who applied for the wolfpack permit.
Klemetti, an entrepreneur and Finns Party member of the Kuhmo town council, said that dogs have been killed by wolves in the area this autumn. He said he would re-apply for the permit "if it becomes available…although it is frustrating".
The permits set off a heated debate, with several hunters in the areas reporting that they had received death threats.
Wolf hunting for population management reasons was allowed in principle by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry last December. At that point the ministry was led by minister Jari Leppä from the rural-based Centre Party, which has overseen the ministry since 2015.
The regulation allowed derogation permits to be issued to kill up to 20 wolves on population grounds. Before this decision, such permits could only be issued to cull certain individuals deemed to be causing damage.
Later in December, the Finnish Wildlife Agency issued exemptional permits to kill 18 wolves. None of these permits have been used pending consideration of complaints against them – and in any case they have all expired by now.
In 2007, the Court of Justice of the European Communities ruled that wolves in Finland could no longer be killed pre-emptively, and in 2019 stipulated that derogation permits to hunt wolves for population management purposes must be based on "rigorous and unambiguous scientific data".
Leppä criticised the 2019 ruling as "a major setback".