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Latvia

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Permits

A State Forest Service certificate, a separate permit for foreigners

The hunter’s certificate follows an exam before the board; a separate permit exists for foreigners.

In Latvia the personal document is the hunter's certificate. The State Forest Service issues a hunter's certificate or a head of a hunt's licence to persons who have passed the respective examination before the hunter examination board. The State Forest Service also conducts the examination of candidate hunters and candidate heads of a hunt. The Cabinet sets the detail: the procedures for training hunters and heads of a hunt, the programme and procedures for examining theoretical knowledge and practical skills, the procedures for issuing, exchanging and cancelling certificates and licences, and for renewing, issuing new hunting documents or refusing renewal. The amount of the state fee for the examination and how it is paid are likewise for the Cabinet. Two points bear directly on a visiting hunter. First, the Cabinet lays down the procedure for the permit allowing a foreigner to hunt in the territory of Latvia: there is a route separate from the national certificate. Second, section 13 ties firearm hunting to the possession authorisation: hunters to whom the State police has issued an authorisation to possess a hunting firearm are allowed to hunt with hunting firearms.

Regulations

Latvia: the season runs from 1 April to 31 March

The law sets a hunting season running from 1 April to 31 March of the following year.

The Latvian hunting law opens with a definitions article that fixes the vocabulary: limited game animals subject to a quota; the hunting permit as a document allowing a specific number of animals of a given species to be hunted in an indicated area; the hunting district as a continuous hunting area managed by a single user of hunting rights; the hunting area as land fit for the free living of game animals and usable for hunting; hunting products — trophies, meat and offal; and hunting resources, meaning all game animals in the territory of Latvia. Sustainable management of those resources is defined as managing the populations, habitats and related natural resources so as to protect biological diversity and the capacity for renewal, to secure hunting resources for future generations, and to promote the protection of game animals while taking economic, social and environmental interests into account. Section 7 sets the temporal frame for the whole structure: “A hunting season is a period from 1 April until 31 March of the following year.” Section 6 adds a rule specific to birds: resources of game bird species are to be used so that bird hunting does not endanger the implementation of nature protection measures in their distribution area.

See also