Organized persecution of birds of prey in Finland: historical and population biological perspectives

Abstract

In Finland, the persecution of birds of prey was already encouraged in the Swedish State Law of 1734, and was first included in bounty schemes in the Royal Decree on Avian Pests in 1741. All species of Finnish raptors and owls were persecuted during 1898–1923, the most intense period of active bounty-paying by municipalities and hunting societies. Elimination of avian predators was regarded as reasonable game management, and was also justified on moral grounds. Since the late 19th century, persecution of many species was questioned by professional biologists.We investigated the legal basis of persecution at different times, changes in attitudes towards birds of prey, and local and long-term impacts of persecution on population ranges and sizes in Finland.We found that in analysing the consequences of persecution, both the spatial and temporal scales of study are important. While populations of persecuted species may have dramatically declined at local scale, at the national level the ranges may have remained more or less stable.Active persecution had a severe short-term impact on many species: for example, the established breeding population of the Greater Spotted Eagle (Aquila clanga) was totally exterminated in the 1920s. Active conservation measures have in recent decades compensated for the losses caused by earlier persecution.