Agriculture and Forestry Minister Sari Essayah (qt.) emphasizes that the numbers of large carnivores have clearly increased, so their protection can be reduced.
BRUSSELS Finland supports the EU Commission’s proposal to reduce wolf protection, but at the same time wants to reduce bear and lynx protection as well. At the meeting of EU agriculture ministers, Finland is pushing for an update to the habitat directive on large carnivores.
Finland’s proposal is supported by Sweden, Austria, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Italy and Greece.
Before Christmas, the commission proposed easing the protection level for wolves so that the wolf would be classified as “protected” in the future, while today it is “strictly protected”.
– We consider it really important that, apart from the wolf, the protection level is also assessed for other large carnivores, i.e. the bear and the lynx, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Sari Essayah said as he arrived at a meeting of agriculture ministers.
Strict protection means that intentionally disturbing, catching and killing the animal is prohibited. You may only shoot an animal with an exception permit if it poses a danger to its environment.
Essayah emphasized that the populations of large carnivores have developed very favorably in the European region.
– For example, in Finland our lynx population has almost tripled and the wolf population has more than doubled during the time we have been a member of the EU.
– We no longer have to keep an eye on the level of protection of both the bear and the lynx, but at the level that hunting can be practiced.
According to Essayah, the growth of large carnivore populations has brought difficulties especially to farmers and people living in rural areas.
– Of course, big beasts belong in nature and forests, but they don’t belong in people’s yards or in lamb fields and cattle yards.
In the European Commission, wolf protection was evaluated after a wolf killed the chairman of the commission Ursula von der Leyen pony last fall on a German farm.