“Let the squirrels live!” is the title of an article published on 1 November 2025 in Norway's largest newspaper, Aftenposten, which appears in Norwegian. Many people on social media reacted sharply to the fact that the squirrel hunting season in Norway opened on exactly 1 November.

Banned in Sweden, permitted in Norway

In neighbouring Sweden, squirrel hunting is banned. The Norwegian Association of Hunters and Anglers (NJFF), by contrast, takes the view that squirrel hunting should continue, because it is an ancient Norwegian tradition. The association considers the squirrel population to be stable and able to withstand a controlled hunting season. Slightly more than a thousand squirrels are shot in Norway each year. According to figures from Statistics Norway, the number ranges from 800 to 1800.

“Norway has good hunting statistics, provided by Statistics Norway. But precise data on how many squirrels there are is lacking,” notes Lasse Frost Eriksen, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA). A few years ago, five NINA researchers published a report that reached a similar conclusion. The researchers have no evidence to suggest that squirrel hunting today threatens the population.

Norway's most important fur-bearing animal

Fair is fair: squirrel hunting in Norway is a very old tradition. Not so long ago, squirrels were unquestionably Norway's most important fur-bearing animal. In economically favourable times, in the 1930s, some 600,000 squirrel skins were exported from Norway to other countries. According to the book Jaktzoologi (Hunting Zoology), published by Cappelen in 1945, the price of a squirrel skin at the time was about three Norwegian kroner. Other sources indicate that before the Second World War a squirrel skin could fetch as much as five kroner, roughly the same as could be earned working on public works in the pre-war period, Tore Fossum writes in Alfarheim, the yearbook of the Elverum historical society, in 2004. Experienced hunters could take up to 20 squirrels in a day. Many poor families in Norway were entirely dependent on this additional income. This and more can be read in an article published on the website of the Norwegian Forest Museum.

Found throughout the country

Buyers wanted squirrel skins for their attractive dark, dense fur. In Norwegian they are called gråverk or gråpels.

Squirrels were hunted across much of Norway. Squirrels were, and still are, found in most of the country's forests. In the past, as today, hunting ran from 1 November to the end of March.

Once summer began, squirrel skins became all but worthless, as they changed colour and density. The last period in which squirrels were hunted for their skins and for sale was the 1950s.

The Viking king Harald Greycloak

Harald Greycloak was king of Norway from around 960 to 970. He is said to have taken his name from squirrels' “winter” pelts – gråpels. Harald wore a cloak of squirrel fur, he ruled in Hålogaland in northern Norway and is thought to have carried on a lucrative trade in squirrel skins with the Bjarmians – a Finno-Ugric people who lived on the shores of the White Sea in what is now the Arkhangelsk region. Squirrels' winter pelts are thought to have been the most prestigious and valuable furs of the day.

Squirrel hunting

Norwegian hunters hunted squirrels in winter at dusk. They often used dogs, or else one person – the shooter – would stand motionless by a tree while the other walked around it. The squirrel would move to keep out of sight, giving the shooter a chance at a shot. The most commonly used weapon was a .22 calibre hunting rifle (a smallbore), or a shotgun loaded with fine shot, so as to damage the squirrel's skin as little as possible, writes author Bjørn Brandt in an article on Gråverk – the squirrel's winter coat – on the site Sollia.net.

Once shot, the squirrel was skinned immediately and the skin turned inside out, stretched over a small frame to dry. Hunters treated the skins with great care so that they would be damaged as little as possible. Interest in squirrel hunting fell away sharply after the Second World War, as fox and mink farming grew.

Is hunting squirrels right or wrong?

The squirrel's main food source is spruce and pine seed. In good seed years, the squirrel population can rise sharply. Squirrels normally have two litters a year; in a seed-rich year there may be more. The year 1922 was especially rich in tree seed and was probably the peak year for squirrel hunting in Norway.

“The roughly one thousand squirrels now shot in Norway each year are a long way from the half a million taken in some years before the war,” notes Lasse Eriksen. “That could suggest there were far more squirrels then than there are today. We lack precise estimates of the squirrel population in Norway. Although we have fairly good hunting statistics and a great many observations in Artskart, Norway's species map, we do not know how accurately those data reflect the overall squirrel population.”

The researcher does not, however, comment on whether squirrel hunting is “right or wrong”. “We are scientists working to provide an evidence base. It is up to the regulatory authorities to decide whether or not to permit squirrel hunting. It has to be said that opposition to squirrel hunting is unmistakable, at least in the Aftenposten editorial, which states: “Unfortunately, Norwegian hunters are still allowed to shoot squirrels all winter, so it is up to them to choose not to. Hunters could instead concentrate on game better suited to eating. The choice ought to be a fairly simple one.”

References and sources:

Pedersen, H.C., Follestad, A., Lorentsen, S.-H., Nilsen, E.B. & Stokke, B.G.: Statusoversikt for jaktbart småvilt: Bestandsstatus og utviklingstrender siste 5 år. (Status overview of huntable small game: population status and development trends over the past five years), NINA Report No. 1917, published 2021.

Grundsetmarten, jakten og skinnhandelen (The Grundsetmartnan fair, hunting and the skin trade), an article by Tore Fossum, published in Alfarheim, the yearbook of the Elverum historical society, in 2004.