Bear hunting season to start tomorrow

Licences concentrated in northern and eastern districts

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By Martti Heikkinen
     
      Bear hunting is to start in most parts of Finland tomorrow - Wednesday August 20th.
      However, some hunters for example in the region of Northern Karelia have decided to postpone the beginning of their bear hunting season until early September, in order to avoid starting bear hunting at the same time as duck shooting gets going. Moreover, the use of dogs is easier when the weather is colder.
      According to the bear shooting quota approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the number of bears approved for the upcoming season is up to about 100 individuals. The number is divided among the different hunting districts across the country.
      The share of Northern Finland is 44, while the quota for Eastern Finland is 54 and that for Western Finland just two individuals.
     
The maximum number includes an increase of more than 10 per cent compared with last year.
      One reason for the increase is the fact that the maximum number also includes those licences that have been granted to Game Management Districts for the taking out of troublemaker bears in a given district.
      Last year the bear shooting quota for the entire country included 89 licences, while a total of 86 bears were shot in the course of the season.
     
The majority of the shooting licences granted to Northern Finland involve bears which have to be eliminated from the reindeer herding areas. Only nine shooting licences were left outside those areas in the Kainuu district.
      The majority of bear hunting licences granted for Eastern Finland were given to Northern Karelia, namely 42 licences. Of these, the local Game Management District has already granted 41 bear shooting licences to the applicants.
      The number includes four individuals more than in the last season.
      Communications Manager Klaus Ekman from the Hunters’ Central Organisation admits that Finnish hunters would like to shoot more than the 100 bears included in the present quota.
      ”The national opinion is more or less that the number of hunting licences could be increased. However, the bear is a protected animal, and the hunting quota has to be in compliance with the European Union directive”, Ekman reports.
     
Another factor making bear hunting difficult is the fact that food lures are not permitted.
      ”At the same time, there are numerous animal carcasses in Eastern Finland attracting bears to places where they can be watched and photographed”, Ekman notes.
      ”Whether these carcasses have been used as bait for bear hunting as well is a question that has sometimes led to heated debate."
     
According to the Game and Fisheries Research Institute (RKTL), the Finnish bear population is slightly more than 1,000 individuals aged more than one year.
      The estimated number of cubs to be born this year is around 200.
      The Research Institute determined that in order to maintain a sustainable population, the highest number of bear hunting licences for the upcoming season could be 105.
      The Finnish bear population is slowly spreading towards the western parts of the country.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 19.8.2008

More on this subject:
 How Unski travelled from Kuhmo to Russia and back

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Watching bears from a wheelchair (21.8.2007)
  The right to arm bears? (29.8.2006)
  Children playing in forest run into sleeping bear (15.10.2007)
  Seventeen bears shot in first two days of hunting season (28.8.2007)

Links:
  Game and Fisheries Research Institute (RKTL)

MARTTI HEIKKINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
martti.heikkinen@hs.fi