Internet based catch diaries in fisheries and wildlife management Mika Laakkonen, Senior Advisor Metsähallitus, NaturalHeritageServices, Finland 1
Metsähallitus is the administrator of state-owned areas in Finland Forest land in managed forests, 3.5 million ha Poorly productive and non-productive land, 1.5 million ha (excluded from forestry) Protected areas, wilderness reserves and other areas, 4.0 million ha Water areas, 3.4 million ha Public water areas One key aim is to offer fishing and hunting opportunities for citizens Ownership of forest land in Finland State (Metsähallitus) Companies Other Private forest owners
Background Metsähallitus sells annually ca. 70 000 fishing and 45 000 hunting permits The income is used for game and fisheries management not for profit making!! Some key questions: How to get sufficient number of reports to estimate catch / bag on different scales? Are customers satisfied with the fishing / hunting opportunities and other services we offer? 3
Collecting reports Fishermen and hunters on state areas report their catch/bag and give feedback online Not obligatory In fishing we have over 6000 registered users that give feedback (+ non-registered users). About 1/3 of hunters report their bag annually Statistically sufficient number of reports (esp. on hunting) How to motivate customers to be more active in reporting and providing feedback? 4
www.tuikki.fi a Fishing Diary A free online fishing diary was published in 2011: www.tuikki.fi Wide selection of data from a fishing trip can be uploaded and saved Sharing with friends - Fisherman s facebook A new mobile version during june 2015! -> Tuikki.fi/mobi 5
www.tuikki.fi a Fishing Diary An interesting and motivating service for fishermen while at the same time Metsähallitus receives valuable data automatically The analyzed data can be used in fisheries management on the state owned water areas (on a scale of a river or lake) Monitoring: total catch, CPUE, fishing pressure, customer feedback / satisfaction Planning: fishing regulations, stockings, habitat restoration, estimating the sustainable fishing pressure 6
The main page 7
Fisherman own profile, friends, etc. 8
Saving new fishing data: time, catch, weather, 9
Saving exact fishing place (map) 10
Pictures from fishing trip 11
Own fishing equipments & photos 12
Own fishing equipments & photos 13
Comparing reports 14
Tuikki.fi goes mobile in june 2015! 15
What next? Mobile version of tuikki.fi bring us more users & feedback? Diary is dependant on fishermen and their reporting activity Diary is further developed on the basis of feedback from users Fishermen are participating in fisheries management and improve their fishing opportunities in the future! The next step: Widening the scope to the private water areas and their management units / authorities 16
Hunting on state land wildlife diary?
Over 100 000 hunters on state-owned land Small game licencehunters ca. 35 000 Hunters of Northern Finland, who have free rights to hunt on state land in their own commune ca. 45 000 Moose hunters ca. 40 000 Leased hunting areas: ca. 2300 (50 000 hunters)
Small game hunting licences (grouse species, other small game, small predators) 123 small game hunting areas in stateowned land Licence prices set by Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Small game period licences (1.8. 31.4.) with grouse 130, without grouse 70 Short-time small game licences (1-7 days): - licences including grouse (22 /day, 70 /week) - small game licences without grouse (11 / day, 37 /week) Young person s licence (under 18 -years) 10 /week (includes grouse hunting) 19
Hunting areas are located in different parts of Finland Small game hunting areas Moose hunting areas Areas leased for hunting
Sustainable grouse hunting A specific program (RSSJ) is annually used to plan sustainable hunting Online bag reporting system (+ paper forms) ca. 40 % of hunters report their bag (= 15 000-18 000 reports / season) Hunting is planned annually based on current grouse density data (from FGFRI) Hunting effort (bag/day) is known regionally from previous years bag reports Hunting pressure (hunting days) are calculated using desired harvest rate
Basics for planning the sustainable grouse hunting Inputs to the online system: Grouse density (FGFRI) Hunting mortality (%) Total bag number Unit bag/day (from previous year bag statistics ) Calculations for Total hunting days Local hunters share Hunting days for seasonal licenceholders Social sustainability (person / sq. km) The maximum number of licences per hunting area 22
Grouse bag on state land 2006-2014 60000 50000 B a g 40000 30000 20000 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 10000 0 Combined Capercaillie Black grouse Hazel grouse Willow grouse
licence based hunting on 2014: 3,0 days hunting/licence ca. 6 hourshunting/day, 7,6 km/day grousebag28 100 ind., 3,1 % of total stock 51 % of the huntersgotprey 3,3 days hunting/prey 20,3 hours hunting/prey 26,2 km walking/prey 40 500 sold small game licences Bag report was given from 17 400 licences (43 %) 24
Wildlife diary? Metsähallitus has an internet based planning tool (RSSJ) to fit hunting quotas for small game hunters on state owned land But there is a need to update the system Finnish wildlife consortium* has now developed a wildlife diary (Omariista) to serve both private and state owned areas The focus of diary is on improving the quality and accuracy of bag statistics which today are based on: random sample from all hunters (research) bag reports of customers on state areas (Metsähallitus) * steering ministry, management & research authorities 25
Wildlife diary Omariista Managed by the Finnish Wildlife Agency https://oma.riista.fi Mobile application available Very good hunting diary for hunters -> contain same elements than fishing diary tuikki.fi System was built on Finnish hunters register Very soon also Metsähallitus starts to collect small game hunting data from hunters through Omariista 26
Thank you for the attention! Picture: A. Ahlholm