Wolves have been wreaking havoc on reindeer herds in Finland's northern municipality of Kuusamo.
The Finnish Wildlife Centre has granted nine permits to cull wolves for the first nine months of the year to the Kuusamo reindeer herding cooperatives of Ala-Kitka, Oivanki and Kallioluoma.
One of the permits was used when hunters shot a wolf last Saturday in the Paljakka area, south of Kuusamo.
"Hopefully we will be able to kill the remaining three wolves during the winter. If the wolves survive until summer, they will certainly wreak havoc during reindeer season," said Jalmari Oikarainen, a reindeer herder from the Ala-Kitka cooperative.
In the autumn, hunters holding special permits culled 14 wolves in Kuusamo.
Reindeer herder Heikki Härmä, of the Kallioluoma cooperative said that wolves have killed more than 200 reindeer of their herd in southern Kuusamo.
In 2021, according to statistics from the Reindeer Herders' Association, nearly a thousand reindeer were killed by wolves in the four herding districts of Kuusamo.