HS Metro 3.8.2000 - Record number of bears in Uusimaa region

"If you go out in the woods today..." particularly the forests of the Uusimaa region, and most especially in the northwest of the area, there is a chance that you might "...be in for a big surprise". In Uusimaa, the old province that includes the Greater Helsinki Area, the number of large predators has increased sharply. At least 17 bears and four wolves are believed to be wandering the forests of the area. Ten of the bears and all of the wolves are believed to be in the northwest, in the municipalities of Vihti, Karkkila, and Nummi-Pusula.

The number of large predators is the greatest it has been in decades. The bear population has been growing steadily by a few individuals each year, and has doubled in just a few years.

The wolf population has not grown nearly as fast, and some of the wolf sightings may have actually involved runaway dogs.

The predators have been moving around in the forests of southern Finland with relative ease, because it has long been illegal to hunt them. Hunting permits have been given out in neighbouring southern Häme, but not for Uusimaa. However, an individual bear or wolf that kills domestic animals or is a danger to people can be shot in any part of the country.

The regional game management district

and the individual game management associations have been under pressure to cull the bear population, particularly in northwest Uusimaa, where residents are becoming more and more hesitant to pick mushrooms and berries. Summer residents are also getting increasingly nervous at their summer cottages.

According to Taisto Seppänen, the chairman of the game management association of Nummi-Pusula, some bears have been seen quite near residential areas. Seppänen notes that while there have not been any real problem bears yet, it is only a matter of time before it happens: some of them have already disturbed horses being raised in the area.

Seppänen does not believe that any hunting permits will be granted for bears in the area. "It will be at least a few years before the ministry agrees to it."

In Helsinki, attitudes toward the large beasts

are much more accepting than in the surrounding countryside. According to one game official, supervisor Jarkko Nurmi, now is not the time to grant hunting licenses. He hopes that the bears that are there would spread out more evenly in the area. He concedes that the density of the bear population in the Nummi-Pusula area is getting to be close to the limit.

The number of bears in the Uusimaa region is not that great, when compared with the regions of Kymi, Southern Savo, Central Finland, and Northern Karelia, each of which have more than 100 bears wandering through the woods. In Northern Karelia, the bear population is estimated to be as high as 250. On the other hand the human population in those areas is not nearly as dense as in Uusimaa, which means that it is about equally likely that a man/bear close encounter of the third kind might take place in the woods in Uusimaa as in Eastern or Central Finland.

The link below is to a graph indicating the increase in the number of wild bears in the Uusimaa region during the past five years.