Finland will ask the EU to reopen hunting of the goose. Finland wants the goose to be moved to a different annex of the Birds Directive, so that hunting is allowed again in certain cases.
The Finnish government is responding to a call from agricultural organizations of six Baltic Sea countries. The chairpersons of the Finnish, Swedish, Danish, Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian organizations wrote on Friday to the EU Commissioner for Environment and to the Scandinavian and Baltic ministers.
They are requesting a change in the status of the goose in both the EU Birds Directive and the Bern Convention. This should make hunting possible again. The annual migration of swans, geese, and many bird species from the cold Arctic north to the warmer south causes significant damage each year to agricultural meadows, fields, and farmland.
The organizations call on the European Commission and their ministries to intervene quickly to tackle the increasing damage. The number of geese has quintupled between the 1980s and 2010. In 2023, the population is already estimated at 2.4 million birds and is expected to continue to grow strongly. According to the organizations, the damage per country typically amounts to millions of euros annually, up to tens of thousands of euros per farm.
Dutch farmers can also receive financial compensation by reporting wildlife damage. The geese feed extensively on grasslands on the Wadden Islands and in Groningen, Friesland, and the northern part of North Holland. In total, the Netherlands paid 31.6 million euros last year in compensation for wildlife damage, six million euros more than the previous year.