It’s moose hunting season in Norway

The "King of the Forest". Photo: Igougo.com

The moose hunting season opened in most Norwegian counties on Sept. 25. And the price is higher than ever, reports Aftenposten.no.

A total of 57 200 hunters participated in the moose hunt in the hunting year of 2007/08. In Norway every tenth person is a hunter.

In order to obtain a permit the hunter must first of all pass an obligatory annual shooting test. And unless you own your own hunting grounds, you must pay a fee to the owner of the property.

The fee varies, but according to the newspaper Aftenposten, it may cost you up to NOK 1000 an hour to go moose hunting in the most attractive territory, that can add up to as much as NOK 30,000 (about USD 5,000) for a large moose ox. The hunters will probably collect around 8,000 tons of moose meat, writes Aftenposten.

The European moose (elk) is slightly smaller than the North American moose.

More than 35,000 moose were felled last year. Hedmark is the largest “moose county” in terms of the number of licences and animals felled. A total of 8 621 hunting licences were issued and 7 981 animals were felled last year. The number of felled moose in Hedmark has not been higher since the record year of 1992. In the counties of Nord-Trøndelag and Buskerud, 4 888 and 3 099 moose were felled respectively, reports Statistics Norway.

Source: Norway Post / Aftenposten / Statistics Norway