The Economist, a popular financial journal reports: “Data; the worlds most valuable resource”. Like many similar truisms, “You can’t manage what you aren’t measuring, and if you aren’t measuring, you aren’t managing”. They are as pertinent to Game Managers as to Pension Fund Managers.
A Game Harvest Statement is released by Statistisk Centralbyra, Statistics Norway during the third week of March every year. It is an annual reporting to hunters that was started in 1876. Data are provided by hunters, required within two weeks of season end for compilation and statistical comparison. It is done for all species and presented in the Agriculture, Forestry, Hunting and Fishing section. Tables summarizing the sex and age composition of species harvested over the decades are also included for all counties. Non-hunting mortalities are also reported. It is the envy of hunters and game managers everywhere.
The following Tables for Moose and Red deer harvests reflect an increasing abundance in their populations arising mid 20th century. It results from a game management strategy of selective harvests based on sex and age quotas that improve population structure: maintaining a cow to bull ratio of approximately 2:1; increasing the mean age of cows, and producing more prime bulls.
Clear-cutting, was implemented as a forest harvest practice that created abundant shrub-food supplies, an important factor in establishing the large moose populations. Predation was not a limiting factor as wolves and brown bears were nearly eliminated. These factors have been explained by J. Lykke, ALCES VOL. 41: 9-24 (2005) as a Production-Harvest Model for moose populations. Refer to the abstract for an overview.
Table 06036, Moose felled, 1889-1890 to 2010-2122
1961-62 to 1974-75 seasons, the mean (average) felled was 7,899 per year.
1975-76 to 1978-79 seasons, the mean (average) felled was 12,513 per year
1981-82 to 1990-91 seasons, the mean (average) felled was 24,899 per year
1991-92 to 2020-21 seasons , the mean (average) felled was 31,910 per year
Consistently high harvests have been achieved for four decades and are stabilizing as land owners, game and forest-users and governments have accommodated their respective interests. The moose population c.1900 was estimated at 5,000, mostly in the eastern part of the country.
Table 06037, Red deer felled, 1889-1890 to 2021-202
1961-62 to 1969-70 seasons, the mean (average) felled was 2,662 per year
1971-71 to 1979-80 seasons, the mean (average) felled was 4,864 per year
1981-82 to 1989-90 seasons, the mean (average) felled was 9,851 per year
1991-92 to 1999-20 seasons, the mean (average) felled was 19,104 per year
2001-02 to 2009-10 seasons, the mean (average) felled was 31,437 per year
2011-12 to 2020-21 seasons, the mean (average) felled was 41,354 per year
Results are equally impressive; achieved using management strategies similar to those for moose. The Red deer population c.1900 was estimated in low hundreds, consisting six small groups in the southwest coastal region.
Annually high Roe deer harvests have also been achieved over the past four decades; 25,000 to 34,000 respectively. Roe deer c.1900 were extinct in Norway.
Table 06060, Registered mortality of large carnivores from 1846 to 2020 are records of Brown bears, Wolves, Lynx and Wolverines harvested annually.
Mean Number of Bears and Wolves Harvested Annually; data from Table 06060
Year Bears Wolves
1846-1855 235 225
1856-1865 209 161
1866-1875 142 42
1876-1885 124 40
1886-1895 72 40
1896-1905 40 58
1906-1915 20 38
1916-1925 4 22
1996-2005 3.8 4.7
2006- 2015 11.3 9.5
2016-2020 8 25.6
Predator control was introduced to protect livestock. Bounties were paid to subsidize costs of the culling activity. From 1846 to 1916 bear and wolf populations were significantly reduced. Culling continued for another 80 years and effectively eradicated the predators. In 1995 the European Union demanded that member countries restore their predator populations. Predictably they began to recover but in 2016, dissatisfied Norwegian farmers and hunting dog owners challenged the EU authority and in 2022 the government restored a cull including one in the wolf protection zone where a limit of only two pairs of adults will be allowed. Elsewhere the cull will be determined by local committees comprised of farmers and hunters.
Continuous records of game harvests in Norway have existed longer than Canada has been a country and are readily available. The records also include cervid mortalities attributed mainly to railroad and vehicle traffic. Consistently high cervid harvest rates of 20 and 30 per cent per year reflect abundant populations that have provided plenty of meat (venison) and great hunting for almost half a century. The recreational and economic benefits of this bounty continue.
The area of British Columbia is two and a half times greater than Norway and compares physiographically across most regions; is yet unable to yield comparable cervid populations and harvests. Arguably, the greater diversity of BC wildlife; four species of large predators, black bears, cougars, bobcats and coyotes and ungulates that include thinhorn and bighorn sheep, mountain goats, mule and white-tailed deer, elk and bison is a factor, but the main reason Norway surpasses BC in producing and maintaining game populations is cultural. Numbers in the rows and columns are the data that explain their success; comparable numbers for BC are unavailable, and haven’t been for 22 years.
Ken Sumanik, May 27, 2022