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<P align="justify"> <b>Fauna</b> consists of animals living in a certain region. The numbers of individuals and species are mainly dictated by climate. </P> <P align="justify"> Living organisms are classed in four groups according to their manner of obtaining nutrition. Plants are independent producers obtaining their energy from sunlight. Herbivores are dependent on plant production and predators on the numbers of herbivores. The fourth group, the decomposer organisms, obtain their energy by decomposing organic material back into the cycle of nature. There are great differences in the biomass of plants, herbivores and predators per unit of area. According to a rough estimate, there are approximately 5,000 herbivore kilograms and 25,000 kilograms of plants per one predator kilogram in the northern regions.Plant biomass ultimately limits the numbers of herbivores and the latter limits the numbers of predators. As plant production is considerably low in the northern regions, a nimal densities are also low. Adding to this the fact that the severe conditions of inorganic nature also place limitations on the adaptation of animals (nature), there are also limited numbers of animals species in the north.. </P> <P align="justify"> The plant biomass of the tropical rainforests is approximately 500 metric tons per hectare, and as much as ca. 300 tons per hectare in the coniferous forests of southern Finland, but north of the mountain birch forest boundary it is at most 5 tons/hectare. Biomass data clearly show that natural conditions in the north cannot support any dense stocks of herbivores. The area for example 400 different moth species on Hankoniemi Cape at the southern tip of Finland, but less than 25 in so-called Fell Lapland. In South Finland a 1000 square-kilometre grid will contain some 150 different species of nesting birds, while the corresponding figure for the northwestern part of Finnish Lapland is only ca. 75. The avifauna of Lapland varies greatly according to biotype. Generally speaking, the bramblingand the willow warbler choose forested land while the cheeper and the wheater prefer the open fells. A particularly noteworthy bird is the bluethroat, the Nightingale of Lapland, whose plumage resembles the colours of Saami costume, a definite reason for choosing it to be the province bird. The province mammal is the bear and the salmon is the province fish. </P> <P align="justify"> The animals of the northern regions have adapted to scarcity and the cold. They are able to survive through adverse periods and produce large numbers of offspring when conditions temporarily improve. In addition to scarcity of fauna, the northern regions are also characterized by large variations in the numbers of animals in different years, i.e. marked fluctuations of stock. The variations of abundance in the stock of Norway lemmings and other small rodents occurring at approximately five-year intervals are classical cases, but there are examples in almost all groups of animals (moths, fish, gallinaceous and other birds, smallpredator mammals). </P> <P align="justify"> The large variations of the Norway lemming stock are partly due to lack of food. When the animals set out en masse in search of food and better grazing areas, a lemming migration takes place. The tales of migrating lemmings intent on suicide are pure fiction. Even if they do not kill themselves, many lemmings die of hunger or fall prey to predators during the migrations. Before migrating the lemmings have eaten and damaged the surface vegetation of their home territories. After prime seasons of small rodents there will be less nutrition than normal for animals such as the reindeer. On the other hand, an oversized reindeer herd will not permit fell vegetation to recover from its natural rhythm of good and poor periods. The reindeer is the only large herbivore of importance in the fell ecosystem. Its importance is emphasiz ed in the fells, where its biomass exceeds approximately ten times that of all other dry land vertebrates. Overgrazing with reindeer will in turn restrict the opportunities of small mammals, as the fells become more and more grazed each year. The plight of the small mammals is in turn reflected in the increasing scarcity of the predators that feed on them the arctic fox, the snowy owl, the rough-legged buzzard and the long-tailed skua. Overgrazing also threatens rare fell plants and fell butterflies whose larvae feed only on certain species of plants. </P> <P align="justify"> The inhabitants of Lapland used the term "mice" when speaking of voles, lemmings and shrews. There are no wild mice in Lapland. Their role is taken by the ruddy vole, a tame and skilled climber that will enter dwellings in winter. This large-eyed and large-eared animal with a tapering snout resembles the mouse. The influence of human culture is also evident in the bird species of Lapland. The sparrow , crow, magpie and domestic pigeon can survive year-round only in settled communities of sufficient size. By setting up nesting boxes man has offered nest-hole birds without abodes nesting places, while expanding their natural habitat. At present birds such as the pied flycatcher and the great tit nest even in the birch stands of the fells. Only a few decades ago these birds were lacking from most parts of Lapland. </P> <P align="justify"> Approximately 10,000 years ago after the last Ice Age, animals began to move into Lapland from the south (Europe), the east (Siberia) and the north (the Arctic regions). In Lapland the European type of fauna is represented by species such as the bank vole, the common shrew and the pine marten. The Siberian fauna type is represented by species of the coniferous forests such as the wood lemming, the wolverine and the elk. The Norway lemming, the wild reindeer and the arctic fox belong most clearly to the Arctic fauna. The distribution of Arctic animals generally covers the whole circumpolar region. In the southern parts of the province of Lapland European and Siberian fauna meet. Classical examples of these encounters are pairs such as the curlew/whimbrel and the chaffinch/brambling. The area south of the city of Rovaniemi is the territory of the curlew and the chaffinch while the whimbrel and the brambling predominate north of the city. </P> <P align="justify"> In Finland the home habitats of the arctic or white fox, a canine species, have been the fells of Enontekiö and Utsjoki. For a number of reasons the arctic fox is becoming extinct in Finland, while still following a somewhat normal existence in the polar regions of Siberia, Canada and Greenland. The world arctic fox population is estimated at 100,000 300,000 animals, but there are probably only approximately 100 in Europe, of which 5-15 in Finland. At first, the arctic fox stock was so depleted by hunting spurred by fur fashions that this species was officially protected in 1940. Despite protection, the stock did not revive. At present there are few large predators in the fells leaving the carcasses of prey that was largely the source of food for the arctic fox. The ending of transhumance has also spelt an end to reindeer dying of their own accord in the fells. Human settlement led to the spread of fox into the fells and as a stronger species it would either kill arctic foxes or drive them out of their habitats. The final scourge was the warming of the climate which was favourable for the fox and other southern species and increasingly limited the conditions under which the arctic fox lived. It has even happened that in years of large vole stocks there have been no arctic foxes breeding in Lapland. This animal is known to have last reproduced in Lapland in 1996. </P> <P align="justify"> Owing to the encounter of three types of fauna, Finland and Lapland have a wider range of animal species than their northern location would suggest. The best to adapt to conditions in the north have been the representatives of the Arctic fauna type, which are also the species that give Lapland its unique identity. Animal species of the coniferous forests occur over large areas beyond the North Calotte zone, but not, for instance, many of the northern bird species, such as the long-tailed duck, the rough-legged buzzard, the gyrfalcon, the ptarmigan, the plover, the bar-tailed godwit, the long-tailed skua, the snow bunting, the shore lark, the Lapland bunting, the red-throated pipit, the bluethroat and the ring ouzel. The domesticated reindeer is descended from the wild reindeer, which in Fennoscandia lives in a wild state only in the central parts of the Köli mountains. Nature is continually involved in processes of change either of its own accord or caused by man. Animals such as the rat and the house mouse have spread into Lapland along with reindeer in the company of man. Through human agency and the warming of the climate, roe among other animals has spread into Southern Lapland. Unfortunate additions to the fauna of Lapland are originally complete alien species bred by man, such as mink, racoon dog and muskrat. Mink and racoon dog cause considerable damage to other animals. In the form of diminishing bird stocks,the damage caused by these predators is also felt by hunters, as they have contributed to the depletion of gallinaceous birds in Lapland. </P> <P align="justify"> The so-called large predators bear, wolf, wolverine and lynx the best-known and most regressed group of animals, whose numbers have diminished throughout the North Calotte region. Without the immigration of animals from beyond the eastern border there would be even fewer of them in Lapland. Wolf and wolverine are endangered species, while bear and lynx are animal species that need to be monitored. For practical purposes, wolf has become extinct in West Lapland. According to various estimates the numbers of large predators in the North Calotte region (Lapland, Norrbotten, Västerbotten, Finnmark, Troms, Nordland and Murmansk) were as follows in the 1990s: ca. 850 bears (ca. 150 in Finnish Lapland), some 80 wolves (ca. 35 in Lapland), ca. 450 wolverines (ca. 50 in Lapland), and approximately 250 lynx (ca. 50 in Lapland). Owing to protection measures the number of large predators, especially bear and lynx, have shown displayed slight growth over the past few decades. Along with eagles, large predators cause annual losses of roughly 1,000 head of reindeer. These losses can at times be considerable for individual reindeer owners, but as a whole they are less than one percent of the total number of herded reindeer. On a yearly basis the number of reindeer killed by cars and trains is approximately three times larger than the number depleted by predators. The accommodation of predators and the needs of reindeer husbandry is one of the major conservation problems facing Lapland. </P> <P align="justify"> Forestry is the largest single threat to the animals of Lapland. It particularly endangers demanding species living in old forests that cannot adapt to fragmented cultivated forests. Among birds suffering from effective silvicultural methods are the wood grouse, the Siberian jay and the Siberian tit. The draining of bogs and waterworks threatened species thriving in damp environments, such as aquatic birds and waders. Particularly endangered vertebrate species in Lapland are: salmon, lake trout, sea trout, the lesser white-fronted goose, the shore lark, the sandpiper, the scaup, the white-tailed eagle, arctic fox and wolverine. Alongside the wolverine, the lesser white-fronted goose has become a symbol of the protection of animals in Lapland. </P> <P align="justify"> In the early 1900s, thousands of lesser white-fronted geese nested in Lapland, but now only 0-10 couples! Along with the shore lark, the lesser white-fronted goose has become the most endangered nesting bird in the whole North Calotte region. Fortunately some 10,000 couples are still known to nest in Siberia. The largest depletion of the stock took place in the 1940s and 1950s. Although hunters have killed this species of bird throughout history, excessive hunting is not the only reason for the collapse of the stock. It is also due to environmental catastrophes in the wintering grounds of the species near the Caspian Sea. The former steppes in their natural state were converted into cotton fields and the lakes where the birds would spend the night have been dried. The lesser white-fronted goose is a good example of how the protection of species requires international cooperation. Finland and Lapland are responsible for the protection of species relatively common in the north but rare in other parts of Europe. Almost 80% of the European broad-billed sandpiper stock, almost 70% of the pine grosbeak stock and 65% of the spotted redshank are in Finland. All three are species particularly nesting in Lapland. Of the mammals, considerable proportions of the Laxmann's shrew, Norway lemming, ruddy vole and wolverine stocks are found in the area of Lapland. </P> <P align="justify"> Before the advent of industrialized urban culture, the impact of the inhabitants of Lapland on nature was minor though not insignificant, as hunting and fishing have been the basis of life in the north. The so-called Komsa Culture, the first inhabitants of the Sub-Arctic zone, subsisted on hunting and fishing. The domestication of reindeer permitted the utilized of the yield of the "useless" shrub and lichen areas on dry land. Hunting and fishing was practised as effectively as possible with contemporary means. Most of the animals of Lapland were not of any major economic value, but game and furry species were an important exception. Squirrel, for example, was still hunted in the early 20th century at a rate of hundreds of thousands per year. Mountain hare and gallinaceous birds (especially willow grouse) are still an important addition to the diet and a source of extra income especially in the outlying regions. Perhaps the most important change caused by man to the biomass of Lapland was the hunting to extinction of beaver, the largest rodent in Europe, and wild reindeer in the 1840s and 1990s. Professional hunting ended in practical terms completely for a hundred years after the extinction of wild forest reindeer. Professional and part-time fishermen have survived until the present day (-><u>fish</u>). The main game animals were wild reindeer and fur animals in the past, and at present willow grouse, waterfowl and hare in the northern regions of Lapland, willow grouse, black grouse, waterfowl and elk in the southern parts. </P> <P align="justify"> The main invertebrate utilized by man in the past was the pearly freshwater mussel. Officially protected in 1955, this mussel species used to thrive in Lapland's fast -flowing, clean rivers. The clearing of rapids, the construction of power facilities and pollution have destroyed the former mussel rivers. The over-exploitation of the slowly breeding mussels in hope of finding pearls also depleted the stock. Restoration of rapids sites and re-stocking has made it possible to restore the mussel stock in many places. The well-being of northern animals is sometimes dependent on neighbouring species. The freshwater mussel, for example, cannot survive without the brown trout, as one of its stages used this fish as a host, living in its gills. </P>
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