Hunting 2025

A total of 298,249 hunters paid the annual game management fee in 2025. Around 191,000 of them hunted. The number of hunters decreased compared to 2024.

• Hunting bag of black grouse, capercaillie and wood grouse was close to previous year’s level. Around 78,000 black grouse, 21,000 capercaillies, and 25,000 hazel grouse were bagged. The willow grouse bag nearly halved, totaling approximately 13,000 individuals.
• Mallard is by far the most hunted waterfowl in Finland, followed by teal. In 2025, a total of 198,000 mallard and 60,000 teal were bagged.
• The most hunted game species was the wood pigeon (326,000 birds). The average wood pigeon bag was 11 birds per successful hunter.
• The raccoon dog bag was around 131,000 animals, and a total of 40,000 mink, 44,000 foxes, 20,000 pine martens and 9,000 badgers were bagged.
• 50,000 mountain hares and 47,000 brown hares were bagged.
• The moose harvest was 41,225 animals. The white-tailed deer harvest was 40,488 animals.
• There were around 151,000 small-game hunters, including around 59,000 waterfowl hunters and around 93,000 grouse hunters. The total number of moose and deer hunters was around 111,000.

• The game harvest resulted in around 7.9 million kilos of carcass meat, of which two-thirds was moose meat. The nominal value of the game meat was around EUR 61 million.

  Information about the statistics

• The information concerning species within the scope of a hunting permit and the reporting obligation (including deer, large carnivores, grey seals, otters and European polecats, as well as long-tailed duck, merganser, red-breasted merganser, common eider, wigeon, northern pintail, northern shoveler, pochard, tufted duck, coot, greylag goose and bean goose) has been obtained from the Finnish Wildlife Agency and reported at the accuracy of individual animals. (Other species are reported at the accuracy of 100 animals.)
• The statistics were compiled based on a survey mailed to 9,000 hunters. The response rate was 62%. The exceptionally large game bag of some hunters causes uncertainty in harvest estimates, especially at regional level. The reliability of the harvest estimates is usually higher for the most commonly hunted species than for less frequently hunted species. Starting from the statistical year 2024, the hunting statistics includes relative standard error of estimates, which reflects the associated uncertainty.