How Unski travelled from Kuhmo to Russia and back
GPS-collar has sent back bear's whereabouts since October 2007
By Tapio Mainio in Oulu
Last autumn a young GPS-collared male bear called Unski travelled from Kuhmo in Eastern Finland to the Russian neighbourhood of Kontupohja, 400 km from the Finnish border, where he spent the winter.
Last week Unski suddenly appeared again in the Kuhmo backwoods.
”In Sweden, a young male bear was once seen to move to another region, 500 km away, where he also stayed. It is very unusual that a bear comes back like this one has. Apparently the carcasses that had been used as a lure by photographers left an impression and attracted Unski to return, as this summer’s wild blueberry crop has been bad”, says Ilpo Kojola from the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute (RKTL).
”Some kind of disturbance or the exhausting of a source of food prompts a bear to up and leave. Otherwise it stays in a territory roughly the size of a parish. In the summer months it eats mainly berries”, reports Seppo Turunen, the Director of the Korkeasaari Zoo in Helsinki.
A GPS-collar was placed on Unski in Kuhmo, quite close to the Russian border, on October 3rd last year. Ten days later Unski set off, heading purposefully towards the southeast.
”The GPS records indicate that Unski travelled directly almost without stopping, day and night”, reports researcher Samuli Heikkinen from the Oulu unit of RKTL.
For a couple of weeks, the collar seemed to have gone dead, but Unski re-surfaced in early November, close to Kontupohja (Kondopoga in Russian).
He settled down for his winter sleep on November 14th, some 50 kilometres west of the town.
After hibernation, Unski left his lair on April 30th, in order to return to Kuhmo in the summer. With the exception of a few longer stops on the way, he came back pretty much directly, crossing the border three times along the way.
Animals have an unerring ability to orientate themselves.
There is a documented case of a wild Finnish forest reindeer that was moved (by human intervention) from Kuhmo several hundred kilometres down to a location in Central Finland, and after a while it returned to its colleagues in the same small wood from which it had been earlier uprooted.
Finnish researchers have provided a total of some 80 bears with a GPS collar. The batteries of the collars will last for around two years.
More on this subject:
 Bear hunting season to start tomorrow
Previously in HS International Edition:
DNA from fur helps in bear census (20.6.2006)
TAPIO MAINIO / Helsingin Sanomat
tapio.mainio@hs.fi
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