looduskalender.ee

 

 

The Round Table discussion about the Animal of the Year is published as a serial. Participants in the discussion: Executive director of the Estonian Hunters’ Society Tõnis Korts, Deputy executive director Andres Lillemäe, hunter and organiser of nature trips Vahur Sepp, zoologist and wild boar behavioural investigator Ragne Oja, Looduskalender editor Gennadi Skromnov and editors of journal Loodusesõber Helen Arusoo and Mats Kangur.

 

We are in a unique situation: a disease outbreak such as the ASF has never yet occurred in Estonian forests. Hunters are invited to advisory discussions, but not among decision-makers. Thus hunters cannot take part as necessary about solving the bottlenecks in the chains of processes. 

 

Tõnis Korts: At present some goals are set up in society but the prescribed actions do not always spring from the aim of filling the goal.

 

Gennadi Skromnov: That is why we are talking here today.

 

Tõnis Korts: To meet this goal – to shoot at least 30 000 boars in one season! – as effectively as possible, how should we fulfil these requirements? We have had no really professional and substantial discussion where hunters have been asked: what are your real possibilities? For our part we have all the time underlined the fact that we are a non-profit organisation  (similar to a golf club) and we carry on hunting in our free time. Of course we have certain obligations by law, which we diligently meet. But in this case let us look together at the chain of actions by which the objectives should be realised. This has not been done. And so we have arrived in a situation where the decisions made today do not support this goal – to shoot 30 000 boars in one season and neither does the new feeding regulation directive support the goal.

 

Why not listen to hunters when they say that it will not work?

 

Tõnis Korts: Not why not listen but why not ask them. Asking hunting expertise is not included in the decision making process today. Today’s decisions have been political. Karolin Lillemäe from our Hunters’ Society was present at the meeting of experts in Parma in Italy and said that good people were sitting together, but among them were no hunting specialists or hunting biologists. But this group decided in these matters. I myself have been sitting as a representative in an environmental committee where a politician said that we must have a decision now because people look to us. We tried to talk about the quality of the contents of the decision but it was no use. These days the political pressure is so heavy  that involving experts is a victim of it.

 

Gennadi Skromnov: Why did we last year choose the boar for the Animal of the Year – it was clear that the swine fever would reach Estonia. We are actually on the threshold of a catastrophe but no operational decisions have been made. This pest can stay for a long time to haunt us in Estonia – 10 years or even longer.

 

Vahur Sepp: The main task of hunting is to maintain a balance between human community and wildlife. Now we have reached the point where hunters must achieve this balance. That the number of boars has increased this far is due to humans. If this plague had not arrived we should have had to do something about boars anyway  because our plant communities already suffer – boars eat much ”roots”. At the moment the pest is as if a correction of mistakes made by man. We must set a target stating how many boars could live in our nature. In the 1970s when I started on my profession as hunter there were around 8000 boars, and boar hunting was quite exotic and there were not enough animals ”to go round” for all hunters. But there are not enough bears either even now, and still bear hunting is a great thing.  We should settle on how many boars should be left in the forests and on the methods by which we should be able to bring down the abundance quickly to these numbers. 

 

Andres Lillemäe: Do you remember when we had a hunting area regulation?

 

Tõnis Korts: Exactly, this is missing. All that Vahur has said is correct, that boars are many but the reason that it is so is surely not the fault of hunters. Because organised hunters have always maintained that government should have a significant role in guiding wildlife resources, but it is not so. In this area we prefer so to say a more heavy-handed government. Because the interests of people are so different and if government does not regulate this nothing can be done – there will be chaos as at the moment. Hunters have always acted as directed by public institutions and I don’t understand why the game investigators have drawn no conclusions from the boar population growth curve and why they have said nothing earlier. In the latest hunting act the regulation of hunting areas which very accurately determined the feeding places, and also their numbers, is completely eliminated, and now this is not regulated at all.  Hunters have not brought conditions to this. Looking at hunting tourism that certain groups arrange in the country – government has not prohibited it nor considered necessary to regulate it. So conditions have developed to where locally ”piggeries” have appeared in the forests. The Hunters’ Society says this situation is not normal but currently we can neither direct nor forbid such enterprises, there is no legal right or basis to do so. According to law it is a matter of agreement. Here hunters say: government, please be the judge and helper in this.

 

Vahur Sepp:  It might be done if the Hunters’ Society members were to sit down together and say, don’t let us squabble, just don’t let us get this number so high.

 

Tõnis Korts:  It is not possible because we are an organisation acting from the bottom up, although we would gladly be an organisation acting from top downwards as for instance in Poland. We cannot tell hunters, only ask them. We would gladly take on the handling of resources ourselves as in Sweden. In hunting there is a large amount of resources, even the scientific part and other costs such as damage compensations could be handled. But we are told that in a free market economy it is not suitable. Why we underline this missing part of government’s role today – is because concerning one measure prevised by the Ministry of Environment there will be immediate uproar. The measure stipulates that land owners will be given nearly unlimited power regarding big game and boar hunting. It has already caused owners to create new feeding sites. If a landowner decides to create a feeding site the hunters’ society has no say at present. Authorities neither.  My own land, I know what I do. Another step that does not support but hinders the objective to bring down the abundance of boars. There is no need now to establish new feeding places. But the change to be introduced favours precisely this. If the aim of government today is to bring down the number of boars it should also be necessary to know what is the scientifically based minimum regarding this number. However, it is  not known.  It is a fumbling in darkness. In the European discussions an agreement was made on 5 individuals per 1000 ha, here we talk about some 1,5 individuals. The average density over all Estonia is not important. The vital part is the abundance of individuals in a suitable area. A fenced-in sheep pasture is one thing, a bare city surrounding something quite else and so on. More professionalism!

 

The series from the hunters’ round table continues.