Helsinki is urban but teeming with wildlife

Wolf spotted in Konala, lynx seen in Viikki, and the elusive flying squirrel came to town by train

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By Elsa Tuppurainen
     
      The wandering brown bear that made an appearance in front of startled residents of Kaunianen and Espoo a week or so ago (see link) never managed to cross into Helsinki. The beast sloped off under cover of darkness and returned, probably with some relief, to its home in the wildwoods of the Nuuksio National Park.
      It stirred up some near-hysterical tabloid headlines, but in actual fact large game and large predators are not completely unknown in these parts, even in the capital. A couple of years ago a hungry wolf was spotted in the act of stealing tallow put out for the birds in a garden in Konala.
      Some people dismissed the claims out of hand, but the animal was eventually determined to be a genuine wolf after a City Public Works Department wildlife officer took some samples of fur left behind for analysis. It had been several decades since the last documented sighting of a wolf inside city limits.
     
Wolves are admittedly an exception; the typical city mammals you are quite likely to come across are the squirrel, hare, and hedgehog. Squirrels have adapted almost too well to urban life. There are also a few rats, and dormice and field mice. Three other relatively commonplace species are the stoat, vole, and northern bat (Eptesicus nilssoni).
      Green belt areas and the larger parks are home to such creatures as foxes, elk, muskrats, wild mink, and the ubiquitous raccoon-dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides), though as often as not this last one shows up as roadkill.
      Just over a week ago, someone sighted a roe deer grazing in Viikki, the location of the University of Helsinki’s biosciences campus.
      There have been a few other rather more special visitors in recent years: a very lost porpoise was seen from deck of the ferry across to the old fortress island of Suomenlinna (just a short hop from the South Harbour), a lynx (!) was spotted checking out the lie of the land in the woods near Viikki, and there has even been a sighting of our old friend the flying squirrel (Pteromys volans), which turned up near the old wooden villas alongside the railway line close to the Toöölönlahti Bay. It is thought that the squirrel might have hitched a ride into town on a train.
      An otter (now sadly a rather rare animal and hence protected) has been seen at Vanhankaupunginkoski, the original 16th century site of the old city, and pine martens, normally found darting through the forests, have been spotted in various parts of Helsinki.
      According to the City of Helsinki Environment Centre’s records, a total of 46 mammal species have lived in Helsinki over the last nine or ten years.
     
Birds can outscore this without difficulty. According to the last mapping carried out, there were 123 definite nesting species and a further 48 “possibles”. The most common nesting birds are the wagtail, common gull, and chaffinch.
      A great many more birds cross Helsinki’s air-space and some of them even land here for a while. In Viikki alone, spotters have documented 287 different species. Among the most recent new sightings was an adventurous white-winged black tern (
Chlidonias leucopterus) that was several hundred miles off course when seen last summer in the bay below Vanhankaupunginkoski.
      One new nesting bird to have taken up in the water-meadows in the same area is the citrine wagtail (Motacilla citreola), another lost soul who by rights ought to be way south and east of Helsinki.
      Roughly a decade ago, the first wood pigeons (Columba palumbus, not to be confused with the standard “rat with wings” of the urban domestic pigeon or rock dove) decided to become city-dwellers.
     
If birds and mammals are well-represented, things are not so good for the amphibians and reptiles.
      Four reptiles and four amphibian species have been found in Helsinki in recent years. The standard frog and viviparous lizard hold their own best in the city. The moor frog (Rana arvalis) is protected under Annex IV of the EU Habitat Directive.
      There are around 60 different types of fish to be found in the coastal waters immediately around Helsinki.
     
Nobody has publicly come up with an estimate of the insect population or its variety, but there are one or two astounding residents, most prominent among them being the Chilean recluse spider (Loxosceles laeta), which allegedly came in years ago on a shipment of fruit from Brazil.
      This is a genuinely poisonous spider - the only one in the country, incidentally - and lives free in just one building. By a wonderful irony, the building in question happens to be the Natural History Museum. In the cellar of the museum there is a house cricket in residence.
      The island suburb of Lauttasaari to the west is known for its population of Pharaoh ants, which make their nests in any crannies they can find and cause general irritation to the locals. Three other pesky and unpopular residents are fur beetles, various clothes moths, and silver-fish or silver-ladies (Lepisma saccharina).
     
Moving on briskly to butterflies, the most common is probably the peacock butterfly, which has been seen again this spring in large numbers.
      Among the wierdest of visitors is the Clouded Yellow, seen once on a landfill site in Vuosaari. The same site is home to the splendid Large Copper, which is protected and extremely endangered. Its future is threatened, at least in this location, by plans to landscape the overgrown landfill vegetation.
      There are a number of rare moths enjoying life in the grounds of the Lapinlahti Mental Hospital, including the extremely endangered Depressaria chaerophylli, the larvae of which dine on rough chervil. This and other moths and butterflies face hard times ahead, as old historic untended areas are turned into grassy swathes.
     
In most cases, construction steals away natural habitats for the animal kingdom, but it also can provide temporary nesting areas. A sandy embankment erected during a building project in Ariabianranta on the east side of the city was occupied last summer by a grateful sand martin.
      The Arabianranta rabbit warren is, however, in danger of being swallowed up as this former waste ground - home to the grateful rabbit community since 1997 - is gradually built on.
     
Keep your eyes open. You never know what you might see in Helsinki. But those myths about polar bears you can forget, unless of course you go to the zoo at Korkeasaari. Even there you may be unlucky, as the Bear Castle has only just reopened after renovations.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 25.5.2004


Previously in HS International Edition:
  If you go down to the woods today... (21.5.2004)
  Score one for the Siberian flying squirrel (12.5.2004)

Links:
  Helsinki Zoo
  Nature in Finland: Creatures great and small (Virtual Finland)

ELSA TUPPURAINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
elsa.tuppurainen@hs.fi