Wildlife photographer hides for week in Finland forest — then rare creature emerges
When elusive creatures live in remote regions of the world, they are rarely spotted by people and are even less likely to be captured on camera.
There is just one way to see them — patience.
One wildlife photographer embodying this virtue spent weeks hiding in cold, northern forests.
Elias Kalliola, a professional photographer from Helsinki, Finland, spends part of his fall seasons near the Russian border hoping to spot and record the forests’ more evasive animals, including wolverines.
In September, he spent seven days camped out in a wooden structure with his camera trained on the forest floor, he said in an Oct. 9 Instagram post.
“On my last day in the hideout this season I got probably my favorite footage of a wolverine I’ve ever gotten,” Kalliola said in the post.
European wolverines were heavily hunted during the 20th century, according to The Wolverine Foundation, and their numbers remain small in Scandinavia.
Kalliola has been able to photograph multiple wolverines, posting the photos and videos on his social media.
“Wolverines are (a) very rare sight in Europe and only around 1,000 wolverines are living in the whole continent,” Kalliola said in an Aug. 1 Instagram post. “400 of them are living in Finland and this fellow in the video is one of them.”
Kalliola said the animal is so rare in this part of the world that many consider just finding their tracks as lucky.
The videos are captured from a small wooden bunkhouse with a rectangular slit where the camera lens can poke through, but is otherwise camouflaged, Kalliola’s videos show.
Habitat disruption is part of what has kept the wolverine population low.
“Wolverines are such beautiful creatures and a very rare sight in the wild. Sadly the life of a wolverine is not easy due to human activities. Wilderness areas where it lives are now smaller than ever before and they keep getting smaller,” Kalliola said in a Sept. 25 Instagram post. “Wolverines are solitary animals and they need vast territories to survive. In small, scattered forest areas (the) wolverine has a very hard time surviving as a scavenger.”
Kalliola has spent four years going to the hideout, and with around 60 days spent there, he has only seen a wolverine five times, he said in an interview with Newsweek.
“Every time it has been a very pleasant surprise when a wolverine has appeared,” he told the outlet.
Wolverines are members of the weasel family and are known for their “strength, cunning, fearlessness and voracity,” according to Britannica, and they are able to fight and win battles against animals twice their size.
