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Finland's traditional Bear Hunting season begins today with the most of the hunting licences distributed in northern and eastern Finland.
The Finnish bear hunting tradition goes back along way and according to anthropologist Juha Pentikäinen there remained, until relatively recently, a 'bear hunting ritual' where the spirit of the hunted bear would be thanked for giving up its body to the hunters. This ritual may recall Finland's pre-Christian religion in which all natural phenomena and even names were believed to have 'spirits' which could be tamed by a 'shaman.'
The Ministry of Agriculture provides quotas and licences each year to control the number of bears - estimated to be about a thousand overall - that are hunted. The ministry has distributed 44 licences in northern Finland (including Lapland) which is an increase on last year. Eight-six bears were shot nationwide last year with 89 licences issued. Hunting the bears can be quite difficult, however, not least because bait cannot be used to entice them out.
Most of the licences granted in northern Finland are in Lapland where, according to the ministry, bear numbers have to be kept down to protect the reindeer herds. These are mostly in the east though the bear population has been gradually spreading westwards.
According to Luonto Liitto (Nature League), which campaigns for animal welfare, 'there is a problem with illegal hunting in Finland and particularly of wolves' but this problem is not that significant with bears and 'we do not actively campaign against bear hunting, Though we are we are not in favour of the hunting of large carnivores and one of them is the bear' said their representative.
Tuomo Pispa of the Finnish Hunters' Association felt that the quotas for bear hunting were 'enough but maybe we could have a little more'. He argued that hunting was necessary because 'the bears damage bee farming and also other farming such as cattle. In Lapland, we need to protect the deer. Some men get together and have this ritual but bear hunting is really just practical.'
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