Motives for voluntary wildlife monitoring in Finnish hunting teams
Pellikka, J., Lindén, H., Rita, H. & Svensberg, M. 2007: Motives for voluntary wildlife monitoring in Finnish hunting teams. - Wildl. Biol. 13: 1-10.
Information about game population states and hunting regulation are important prerequisites in ensuring the sustainability of populations. Voluntary gamemonitoring has a potential of being an important factor in addition to the monitoring made by professionals. The main method in the monitoring of many game species in Finland is the wildlife triangle scheme (WTS), providing abundance estimates of about 30 species. The WTS is largely carried out by voluntarily participating hunting teams. Regardless of thelongtraditions in the hunters’monitoring activity and hunting regulation, very little is known about the characteristics of the hunting teams that have been active in theWTS. To gain more insight into the characteristics of the hunting teams at a national and regional scale, we analysed quantitative questionnaire data on various activities of hunting teams collected by the Hunters’ Central Organization. A typical team carrying out censuses has a large number of members and large hunting grounds, and its monitoring activity is also associated with the voluntary regulation of the hunting of grouse as well as other management actions. The findings indicate that especially large hunting teams are active in voluntary game monitoring in Finland, but also small groups of motivated individuals can successfully participate in theWTS.
Key words: hunting team, monitoring, motivation, regulation
Jani Pellikka &Hannu Rita, University of Helsinki, 00014University of Helsinki, Finland - e-mail addresses: jani.pellikka@helsinki.fi (Jani Pellikka); hannu.rita@helsinki.fi (Hannu Rita)
Harto Lindén, Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute P.O. Box 6, 00721 Helsinki, Finland - e-mail: harto.linden@rktl.fi
Marko Svensberg, Hunters’ Central Organization, 01100 Itäsalmi, Finland - e-mail: marko.svensberg@riista.fi
Corresponding author: Jani Pellikka
Received 28 January 2005, accepted 16 November 2005
Associate Editor: Göran Ericsson