To be able to get a firearm license for hunting in Sweden you must have a hunting education, my friend Lars have been trying to get an theoretical and practical(shooting) course for the last 1,5 year but last summer it was canceled because of covid. You can take part in hunting together with an experienced hunter and use their rifle/shotgun then you hunt close together.

Last week I did a scouting tour for beaver and found two fresh places a logging/eating place and 5km apart a hud had fresh branches on it, now it has been about 8-10c in northern Sweden so beavers are active. On the logging place a 8" tree (at the base) was cut in to pieces and was taken away.

To night we went hunting after I finished my work. We had nice sunny weather with a bit of wind. We sat at a creek shore (the feeding spot) for about an hour and then we decided to change location. At the other area, the hud with fresh branches we saw a beaver right at the start in the creek between two lakes. We waited for 20 minutes before it showed up again and it cawed up on the ice. Lars shot it with my Bergara 300blk then it had came up so well we didn`t think we would loose it after the shot. Lars first ever game fell right on the spot the varmint bullet hit the neck and it did its job and stayed within the body. I cut a long stick to reach the beaver on the thin ice. It was getting dark as we dragged it to the road ~20.30. We skinned the beaver together and he also took the skull as a throphy.

https://www.thehuntinglife.com...a1df50b22830d792.JPG

Cool and congrats. Pretty country!

Congratulations on nice beaver

Grattis!

Thanks

We will wait a couple of weeks so the waters are more open from ice, and then take the canoe for beaver hunting on the creek and lakes in the area.

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Looking at this picture, Swedish beaver don't have flat, scaled tails like ours ?

Dude his tail is right there in the photo. You can't see the left rear leg. Be Well, Packy.

They have a wide paddle like tail. Similar to Canadian beaver.

quote:

Originally posted by packrattusnongratus:
Dude his tail is right there in the photo. You can't see the left rear leg. Be Well, Packy.

Thanks, I assumed that was his leg.

Grizz

Interesting! I assumed that the European beaver had been trapped to extinction long ago. Glad to see there are huntable numbers northern Europe. They are an important animal to the ecosystem and their activities create a lot of habitat for other species.
Where I live in Eastern Saskatchewan, they are plentiful and cause a lot of damage to roads and farmland. Since the fur is practically worthless, few people trap anymore. So, the local government has declared them a nuisance animal that can be hunted year round, with no limits. We also have plenty of bears, wolves and otters However,it appears that the only thing that would greatly reduce the beaver numbers is disease, like tularemia. So far, that hasn't happened. So, we enjoy good beaver hunting here.

Beaver were hunted to extinction in Sweden in the late 1800s, the money made from one beaver was the same as two years of salory for a farm worker. They were replanted from Norway were one landowner had saved them. In my area in Norrbotten beaver were replanted by the hunters association in the mid 1980s and we could start to hunt them about year 2000. We do also have bears, otter, wolverine and wolf. The hunting season are from october to may, for trapping, demolition of dams (excavator, dynamite) you need a special permit.

Finland do have both European and Canadian beaver the populations do not hybrid. The Canadian beavers were brought in by American emmigrants who gave beavers and Whitetail deers as a gift to the home country.

What do you mean when you say "both European and Canadian beaver populations do not hybrid"? The two species are so distinct that they can not interbreed and produce viable offspring? That is very surprising to me.
What is the average weight of a adult European beaver? I would guess ours average about 15 kg. with a very large one weighing 30 kg. (The largest i have heard of is 42 kg.)
Thanks again for posting the story.

The Canadian beaver are likely to outcompete the european away from areas there they both are, the euroean are protected in Finland but the canadian are seen as an alien.

I Sweden the average may be 14kg the largest I heard of were 30kg, the one on the picture ~20kg.