The Wolves of Turku were a trio of

man-eating A man-eater is an animal that preys on humans as a pattern of hunting behavior. This does not include the scavenging of corpses, a single attack born of opportunity or desperate hunger, or the incidental eating of a human that the animal has kil ...

wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...

which in 1880 and 1881 killed 22 children in

Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. The average age of the victims of these wolves was 5.9 years. Their depredations caused such concern that the local and national government became involved, calling help from Russian and Lithuanian hunters, as well as the army. The wolves killed their last victim on November 18, 1881. On January 12, 1882, an old female wolf was shot and twelve days later, an adult male was poisoned, putting an end to the attacks. One of the dead wolves was sent to the hunting museum of Riihimäki, the other in the St Olof’s school where they can still be seen today. The third wolf ended up as a doormat and disappeared."Comments to the NINA report "The Fear of Wolves", Suomen Suurpetohdistys ry, Konapintie 62, 88900 KUHMO, FINLAND
/ref> In recent times, some Finnish conservationists, notably Pousette (2000), have debated the accuracy of the depicted events. Although he stated that there was no direct evidence that the wolves were previously captive animals as the

wolf of Gysinge The Wolf of Gysinge was a man-eating wolf which, in three months, attacked and killed many children in Gysinge near central Sweden in the early 1820s. Attacks During a three-month period between December 30, 1820, and March 27, 1821, the wolf att ...

was, he indicated that the possibility could not be ruled out. He also stated that the female had poor teeth. Erkki Pulliainen, the leading wolf specialist of the Wolf Specialist Group of the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

stated that the historical information was very unreliable, and told the newspaper "Demari" on October 27, 2005, that one Turku wolf was really a

wolf-dog hybrid A wolfdog is a canine produced by the mating of a domestic dog (''Canis familiaris'') with a gray wolf (''Canis lupus''), eastern wolf (''Canis lycaon''), red wolf (''Canis rufus''), or Ethiopian wolf (''Canis simensis'') to produce a hybri ...

. Eirik Granqvist wrote an article in the leading daily

Helsingin Sanomat ''Helsingin Sanomat'', abbreviated ''HS'' and colloquially known as , is the largest subscription newspaper in Finland and the Nordic countries, owned by Sanoma. Except after certain holidays, it is published daily. Its name derives from that of ...

confirming that they had been positively identified as wolves after their remains had been examined in both the hunting museum and St Olof's school.Letter to Mr. Pierre Schellekens, B-1049 Brussels, Belgium
/ref>

References

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Disasters in Finland Man-eaters Individual wild animals 1880 disasters in Finland 1881 disasters in Finland Natural disasters in Finland