Small game hunt galore, not waterfowl

Hunters caught more small game in 2018 than that in the previous few years with a significant increase in the forest grouse bagged in particular, according to the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke).

However, the waterfowl catch was slightly lower than that in previous years, said a Luke press release on Wednesday.

There were approximately 202,000 active hunters in Finland last year, of whom around 80 per cent hunted small game and 60 per cent hunted moose and other Cervids.

“Approximately 125,000 small game hunters caught bag. In the present decade, around 75 per cent of small game hunters caught bag, although the proportion has dropped slightly in the last few years. The most exceptional year in this decade was 2017, when only two out of three small game hunters bagged game animal. The trend returned to normal in 2018, however,” said Luke Research Scientist Leena Forsman.

The total forest grouse bag in 2018 was twice the size of that in the previous year. Both the forest grouse populations and number of birds bagged were unusually small in 2017.

“Wildlife triangle censuses carried out in the summer of 2018 showed increased bird populations, and a longer hunting season was allowed in many regions. These factors led to an increase in both the amount of forest grouse hunting and the birds bagged compared to the previous year. About half of last year’s hunters hunted forest grouse,” according to Senior Scientist Jani Pellikka of Luke.

The waterfowl bagged has been on the wane every year since 2013, and the 2018 bag was the smallest of the decade so far. The number of waterfowl hunters has also declined, having dropped by almost a third since the beginning of the decade.

“Last year, around 70,000 hunters hunted waterfowl. The mallard bag was the largest, followed by teal. The number of teal hunted was only about half that of mallard. The third most common waterfowl species bagged last year was goldeneye. The bags of these most common game species have fallen in just the past few years,” said Forsman.

The small predator bag was slightly below that of the previous year. The largest bag of small predatory mammals was raccoon dogs, followed by mountain hares. Over the last three years, there has been a clear reduction in the bag of mountain hares.

Around 30,000 hunters caught raccoon dogs last year, and roughly the same number caught mountain hares. The next largest catches were mink and fox, with about 20,000 of each species being bagged. The largest bag of all game species was ground pigeon, which were caught by almost 30,000 hunters.