Hunting and small-game bag 2018

A total of some 303,000 hunters paid the annual game management fee in 2018. 202,000 of them actually engaged in hunting. The number of hunters has decreased in the 2010s, but the numbers have remained roughly the same for the past three years.
More grouses were caught than in the past two years. The bag of grouses in 2018 was double that of the previous year. Approximately 88,000 black grouses, 35,900 wood grouses (capercaillies), 39,900 hazel grouses and 20,300 willow grouses were caught.
Waterfowl were caught 15 % less than in the previous year. Mallard is by far the most commonly hunted waterfowl in Finland, followed by teal. In 2018, 157 600 mallards and 80 500, teals, including garganeys, were caught.
The most commonly hunted animal was the wood pigeon (263 600 birds). The average bag of wood pigeons for one hunter was 9,3 birds.
More small predators were caught than in the previous year: some 20% more raccoon dogs were hunted than in the previous year. The bag amounted to around 180 000 animals. The next most commonly hunted small predators were mink and fox (some 50,000 both), which is as much as in the previous year.
The number of mountain hares caught remained still small (86,000). The total number of animals hunted last year and the previous year was only one-fifth of the record-high bags in the 1990s.