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An ideal eco-socio-economical management solution for moose populations in Northern Karelia would involve minimizing moose damage to forestry and road accidents, while maintaining sufficient numbers of moose for both man and carnivores. The third consumer of moose, human being, has tools to regulate the abundance of both moose and its predators. Without alternative prey, wolf numbers will eventually decrease with decreasing moose population size.

The absence of alternative prey for the wolf may weaken the potential for its regulatory impact on moose and thus the emergence of a predator pit. Furthermore, while wolves are more or less dependent on moose for food, moose do not have a big impact on its consumption rates by the omnivorous bear. When they are successful, wolves do not eat in moderation. It is, however, very unlikely that the low moose density of this region would sustain a high number of wolves for an extended period of time due to the absence of alternative ungulate prey. These social animals cooperate on their preferred preylarge animals such as deer, elk, and moose.

This seems to presently hold true also with predation on moose in North Karelia. With moose this concept traces some decades back to Southern Alaska where abundant populations of wolves, brown bear and black bears shared locally sparse moose population. The precondition for a predator pit to emerge is that more than one predator species share the same low density prey population, and that alternative prey species exist for the predators. That is, the consumption of prey by predators increases whenever prey populations begin to increase. In wolf pack territories with no substantial alternative prey species, such as white-tailed deer and reindeer, 25–50% of the annual increase of moose population may be taken by wolves, depending on territory size, pack size and local moose density.Ī predator pit entails a situation where predation regulates a prey population at constantly low densities. A high density bear population may decrease moose calf production by >20%. Large carnivores may have a major impact on moose population densities.