How popular is hunting in various regions of Europe?
I know they hunt in England and Scotland, but it’s typically a pastime of the aristocracy or of people who own farms. They usually hunt small game like rabbits, and birds like quail, grouse, pheasant, etc. Do they hunt deer in England and Scotland? What do they use? Slug guns? Bows? I doubt they use rifles because the population density is just too great.
What about France, Spain, Italy and Germany? I imagine there is more of a hunting culture in Germany than in most of Europe. What do they hunt there? Boar? Deer? What kinds of birds?
I’m also under the impression that there is a lot of hunting in the colder northern countries like Sweden and Norway. Many great gunsmiths have come from Scandinavia and they make some good hunting rifles like Tikka and Sako. So I assume there is probably a great deal of hunting there, historically and in the present day. Is this true? Again, what weapons do they use there, and what is the game?
Finally, I’d guess that in Russia, there is much more hunting because of the sheer size of the country and the rural traditions being more preserved than in more metropolitan countries.
There are a LOT of people in the Netherlands, and some of them hunt. Hunters have to pass an exam and have a permit. There are very few private hunting grounds in the Netherlands, most hunters just hunt in the public domain. Yet I never hear about hunting accidents where a hunter shoots an hiker.
Bigger game can only be hunted if authorities declare (based on reports by wildlife organizations and farmer organizations) there are temporarily more deer or boar then sustainable for a nature reserve and/or the surrounding farmland. The critique by anti-hunting groups is that this so called surplus of bigger game is the result of feeding in wintertime by hunters. So hunters basically raise their own hunting game.
Smaller game like rabbits, crows, doves, cats, moles, rats, certain geese, are considered pests and can be hunted (with a permit) year-round.
Ducks, hares, pheasants can be hunted during the hunting season.
I’m no expert but this isn’t right. Shooting deer is common across the UK - obviously in the Scottish Highlands but in parts of England as well. There is a whole web-site devoted to stalking here.
It’s with a rifle of a minimum size - the areas where they hunt deer don’t have high population densities.
If you’ve ever seen the film The Queen, it includes Philip, William and Harry going deer stalking shortly after Diana’s death, which they really did do.
It’s legal to hunt deer in the UK during the appropriate seasons. Specific laws vary, but as far as I can tell rifles are the most common weapon. I believe you must use legal firearms - you can’t use a bow.
These guys seem to know their stuff in relation to laws etc.
That’s right – they’re hunted with rifles, too (I believe bow-hunting is illegal in the UK). Interesting to notice that Muntjac are the only deer without a closed season –I seem to remember hearing that they’re breeding in such numbers that they’re becoming a pest.
Other things you can hunt include Pheasant, Partridge, Grouse, Ptarmigan, Blackgrouse, Snipe, Jack Snipe, Woodcock, Duck, Goose, Coot, Moorhen, Golden Plover, Curlew and Hare (though some are protected in places).
This is the top hit when I googled “hunting in germany.” While I haven’t hunted in Germany, the information contained in the website is consistent with everything I’ve heard about hunting in Germany.
The main problem with Country Sports in the UK is finding somewhere to do it.
“Rough Shooting” with a shotgun is popular, you can shoot the game mentioned earlier, along with vermin like corvids, pigeons, rabbits, rats, mink etc.
In this day and age, good rough shoots are like rocking horse poo - there are so many public footpaths, roads, and people walking their dogs etc that it’s hard to find somewhere out of the way that you can shoot in peace.
Foxes and rabbits are often hunted by “lamping” and using a small calibre rifle (.243 etc) but getting a Section 1 Firearms Certificate is no rubber stamping exercise, there are stringent rules to follow. The police will define the land a first-time FAC holder can use, and what he can shoot.
Mr Plod and the Govt would be happy if no-one wanted to shoot, other than at a club range or at clay pigeons, so don’t go out of their way to grant Shotgun or Firearms Certs.
Because many people have never owned a gun, let alone shot at live quarry, public opinion in some places is very anti-Country Sports.
Hunting with dogs was outlawed in 2004, though because the law can be circumvented in various ways, it is sometimes perceived that Fox hunters using packs of hounds simply ignore the law. This makes the subject of Country Sports of all types very divisive with strong opinions on both sides (ie. great for starting a punch-up)
Finland being sparsely populated, hunting has always been popular and never restricted to aristocracy. in modern days hunting is still popular. You typically need licences, it is restricted to specific times of year and guns take licences too. Details vary between species. Moose and deer related traffic accidents are common and restricting the populations unavoidable.
One thing that might be different about hunting in Germany compared with other countries is that it is generally not a hobby that you do occasionally as the mood takes you. You have to learn for and take an onerous test, then lease the hunting rights for a certain area from the landowner/the hunting rights cooperative. This gives you the right to hunt in your Jagdrevier, but also confers game management responsibilities on you - you have to meet culling targets (if any), keep wild boar (sus scrofa) of your hunting area from devastating corn fields (and pay liability insurance, because you have to pay compensation for the farmer if your boars misbehave), and you’ll be called to track down and dispatch game animals seen limping away from an accident. So, if you are a hunter, it’s your only major hobby, and you are out in your hunting area a lot all year long.
Hunting relatively popular in Sweden, but can be a somewhat expensive hobby.
Game can be everything from martens to foxes to quail to deer to wild boar and moose, and hunting seasons, methods and calibers are strictly regulated. The amount of animals killed per year is regulated by a quota assigned to a certain territory, and certain years bear and wolf are included as well (commonly by petition of sami and farmers who require the government to minimize the damage done to their reindeer/cows).
The owner of the land owns the rights to the quota of his territory, and will commonly lease it out to hunting lodges for a ripe sum. Laws also restrict how animals may be killed (shooting a moose cow but leaving the calfs is reason for a fine), as is shooting an animal and losing it without having a tracking dog on call (moose can run for a surprising distance on three legs).
The results of the hunt are commonly split or sold among the members of shooting team of the day, with the shooter commonly claiming the horns or antlers.
Having a hunting license is a requirement for owning a hunting rifle, as well as a license for each weapon. Weapons are licensed by use, so only a rifle suitable for hunting will be licensed as such. Owning a rifle for target shooting also requires membership of a government approved shooting club. A hunting license includes a theoretical exam of gun safety, nature and laws and a practical exam which consists of hitting a moving moose shaped target accurately at some distance. The practical part of the exam needs to be renewed each year.
A couple of years ago I was at Chambord Chateau in the Loire valley. There was some sort of hunter convention going on across the moat in a big field, and you could hear guns going off quite frequently.
The impression I got from the clientele there was: while hunting might be associated with guys who drive pickups and drink beer in the USA - in France, they seemed a bit more upscale. I assume the licensing, hardware, accessible hunting grounds make it more expensive unless the person lives in the more remote areas of France.
There are hunters who don’t use guns, the fox hunting brigade who, as above, sometimes end up killing foxes with dogs, “accidentally”, or killing the foxes by setting eagle-owls on them. Or shooting them. Round these parts there’s a fair bit of rabbit hunting with ferrets, too, not always entirely above board. Same sort of people who go down the cock fights on the local council estate.
Well, yeah, the clientèle at Chambord is upscale - because Chambord is kinda posh, I don’t know if you’ve noticed
The average French hunter or at least his image in the media and stereotype is that of a belligerent drunken hick, same as in the US. Mostly because as you say, hunting grounds are mostly out in the sticks, which is the natural habitat of the belligerent drunken hick :).
As for popularity, well, it is a strong lobby in politics so I’m thinking it must have numerous amateurs - according to Wiki we’re the European country with the most hunters in total, although not the highest ratio of hunters/total pop.
It’s also tightly controlled - you need a permit, they cost money and apparently it includes a legal exam to make sure you know what you’re allowed to hunt when. The exam also includes shooting tests.
AFAIK wild deer isn’t hunted here as those are much less common than they are in the States (due to overhunting in previous eras), but birds, boars, rabbits and hares are common prey.
There are also some places (like Chambord) where deer, pheasants and so on are raised in captivity then released for the purpose of hunting them, but as I said this is more the domain of the upperclass twit than the blue collar hunter in cammies.
And yet other sites, like this one, list open season for Golden Plover as Sep 1—Jan 31.
It’s that sort of uncertainty, along with the variations between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, that I was trying to cover with “(though some are protected in places)”.
Really, I was after giving a general idea of the range of game available, without getting too much into details. I imagine anyone planning on shooting in the UK will look into it for themselves, rather than just going on my say-so.
Deer, elk, doe, fowl, various critters and reindeer* are all commonly hunted in Norway.
A would-be hunter is required to pass a theoretical test for his hunting license. (De facto, his tutor also has to approve of his character for the police to even consider his further applications.) He then has to acquire a gun license through the police who require a membership “in good standing” with a local shooting club. Finally, in order to qualify for that year’s hunt, every candidate also has to pass a marksmanship test against the kind of game he wants to hunt, with the weapon he intends to use.
Calibres, ammunition and loads are all strictly regulated. Quotas are imposed for regions, with a certain percentage of the animal tribe in a region declared huntable. The land-owners who allow hunting on their property sell their quota to a hunting team, usually very expensively. Hunting teams usually self-police in ethical questions like tracking wounded game and not orphaning young animals, because both the police and the press comes down hard on everyone who doesn’t. (Also because it’s a good thing to do, of course, but there’s no sense of slack in the community either.)
The seasons are tightly regulated, but occasional off-season permits are granted against certain animals that are proving too accustomed to humans and venture frequently too close to habitation. (In the north, elk and deer straying too close to schools is not uncommon, which can be a very, very dangerous situation if they’ve lost their shyness.)
All these ordinances were created with the explicit and widely understood intent of making hunting and target sports possible, expensive and self-policing. (Absent anything either good or bad in my application, the local police chamber actually phoned my dad to ask him if there was any reason whatsoever I couldn’t be trusted with a gun.) And to make private gun-ownership for people without a commonly accepted rationale as difficult as at all possible.
While hunters in Norway retain the national and international “rural hick” stamp, it’s also very much part of the Norwegian “man’s man” ideal, along with fishing.
