Hunting Culture, Laws, and Licensing in Austria
- Ted
- Apr 10, 2023
- 7 min read
As a country with extensive woodland, agricultural land and mountainous regions, Austria is a country with a long hunting tradition. Hunting is an important part of the rural economy. It is well regulated and respected.
First off, you may not hunt your own land unless you own at least 115 hectares (284 acres) of contiguous huntable land AND have a license (licensing prerequisites to be discussed later). This is the law in 7 of the 9 Austrian states. In the other two, the minimum is 300 hectares (741 acres).
Given that most people don't have so much land, how do we hunt?? This is done through hunting rights leases, typically concluded between a town's hunting club and that town's landowners (mostly farmers).
Using my small dairy farming town as an example, we have about 3000 hectares in huntable area (of 3089 total) and about 1250 (human) residents. Back in the 1950's, the hunting club began a lease with the landowners, whereby the club pays an annual fee (apportioned to each landowner by size of property) to hunt the land. In return, the farmers get a little money and a reduction in damage to their crops by wildlife. The leasing fee is reviewed/adjusted every 9 years. This fee is funded by annual dues paid by the dozens of hunters in the club, in addition to revenue gained by the sale of all game harvested.
Yes, that's correct, a hunter does not "own" the meat from the game s/he harvests. The club does. The hunter owns the designated trophies (e.g. antlers, tusks), but the club owns the meat. If the hunter wants to keep the meat of the game s/he must pay for it, by dressed weight. I recently paid about €60 for a 37 lb roe doe, yielding about 19 lbs of venison. If you don't choose to buy the meat, the club sells it to a game distributor, who then sells it to local pubs and restaurants.
At the end of the year, if the earnings from the game sales isn't sufficient to cover the cost of the lease, each club member chips in to cover the difference based on how much of the hunting land is allotted to that hunter.
The hunting Revier
Once you are a licensed hunter (process to be discussed later), this doesn't mean you can just go out and hunt... ONLY those who have their own hunting grounds as noted, or who are lessees of huntable land, may hunt on that land. Our club is the lessee of our town's huntable land, and divvies out sections of this land (called "Revier") to the hunters in the club who are willing to take on the responsibility. These are the Revierbesitzer.
Of the dozens of hunters in our club, two-thirds of them are Revierbesitzer. Collectively, they are assigned ALL of the huntable land in our village. If you want to hunt anywhere here, you either must be assigned a Revier, or you have to be invited to hunt in a Revier by its Revierbesitzer. Even the farmer who owns the land may not hunt there without permission from the assigned Revierbesitzer... assuming they even have a hunting license.
A Revierbesitzer not only has the right to hunt their Revier and to erect permanent hunting stands and feeding stations, they also have the responsibility for all wildlife in that Revier. Sick, stuck, wounded, struck by vehicle, starving in the winter… the Revierbesitzer or Weidmann (woodsman) is responsible for ensuring the health and welfare of all game animals in their Revier. Additionally, the Revierbesitzer also fields reports/complaints from farmers for damage done to their crops and fields by game animals. Farmers are entitled to petition the state hunting commission for recompense of damage by game animals.
I mentioned that two-thirds of our club members have been assigned Reviers. What about the other third? These are called “Ausgeher”, and are each assigned to a different Revierbesitzer. They help the Revierbesitzer in caring for the Revier, its game animals, its hunting quota, and the equipment that support these activities.
To summarize: there is no freely huntable land in Austria, and nobody may hunt a given piece of land without the permission of the Revierbesitzer, who is not necessarily even the owner of the land. That said, if someone is a hunter AND a farmer and has been around a while, they will often be assigned a Revier that includes their property.
Licensing
Now, to the licensing. First, you cannot be subject to a weapons prohibition ("Waffenverbot") ... just like in the US, there is a mechanism for prohibiting legal possession of firearms via adjudicated processes.
If you are 18 and not subject to a Waffenverbot, then you can take the hunting exam for your state, which is administered by a combination of the state government and the State Hunting Association. There is a theoretical knowledge component and a practical shooting skills component.
If you have grown up in a hunting family, you can probably pass the exam without taking a class. I had to spend about €1000 tuition, 60 hours of classroom study, two days of shooting range study and practice, and countless hours studying to pass the test. Add to this the €300 I spent for the state association membership and annual fee, the €200 town club annual fee, and the €800 deposit to join the town club. Hunting is Austria is not for "subsistence” and is not a poor-man's hobby!
The exam encompasses:
Knowledge of the names, habits, and physiology of EVERY type of wildlife you might hunt in Austria. I haven't counted, but I'd hazard to guess this is about 50 distinct species of cervid, goat, swine, fowl, and vermin.
Knowledge of hunting seasons and protected seasons for all types of game animals, and the genders and ages thereof.
Extensive firearms handling knowledge of 5 common types of hunting rifles and trigger/safety systems. Some of which are quite alien to Americans.
Illnesses common to all the aforementioned wildlife, along with how to identify them both in the field and while dressing the carcass.
Dressing, butchering, and hygienic handling of game meat. (again, ALL edible species)
Culture, dress, and language norms, which are extremely important to Austrian hunters. Side note here: they have their own hunting terminology for most hunting-related things, so in addition to learning German, Austrian German, and local dialect, you have to learn “Weidmannssprache”.
Types of hunting. For example, solo moving, solo sitting, group hunting in lines, circles, driven, etc.
Hunting law
First aid
Hunting dog breeds, their employment, and their first aid
Passing the exam gets you a license for that state forever, but you do have a yearly fee to renew. If you want to hunt in another state, you must get a license for that state, too. Either a weekend license or a yearly one. This is not difficult, as you just show your current Austrian state license and pay a fee. By law you also need liability insurance to hunt. Membership of a state hunting association includes the necessary insurance. If you want to hunt in another EU country, you need to get an EU license to bring your gun there, and of course there will be a variety of costs associated with local licensing laws. This is VERY expensive, especially if you are successful and want to bring the trophy home.
So now you have your license, your state club membership, a rifle and/or shotgun, membership in your local club, and an assigned Revier (either as Besitzer or Ausgeher). How do you know when/what you can (or must) hunt?
Each local hunting club president (or own property owner, if you have enough land for a designated "own hunt" Revier) must submit an Abschussplan (hunting plan) at the beginning of each year. In it, they stipulate (based on history and input from the state hunting association) how many deer by gender and maturity must be taken in that area to maintain a healthy population.
This plan is divided up among the Revierbesitzer, who then are responsible for harvesting that number over the course of the year. Bucks, does, yearling bucks, yearling does, and fawns... each has a count, and if you don't keep up your quota, you could lose your Revier to another hunter. Contrary to the US, where the hunting season is short, and you may only be allowed to take two deer, an average Revier in our town is about 150 hectare, and the Revierbesitzer for such an area typically has a annual quota of about 15 deer. The expected harvest helps inform the fair market price charged for the game meat sold.
The season of course depends on the animal. Vermin (martens, weasels, badgers, foxes) you can shoot almost anytime. Boar as well, unless they are sows with piglets. Mostly what we hunt here are roe deer, and the season for those goes from mid-April through end of calendar year, with different types to be taken within different seasonal windows.
Realistically, we can hunt almost year-round here, limited only by light, weather, and other commitments.
We can hunt with suppressors (purchase requires a hunting licence) and with night vision devices (the latter for boar).
There is not a legal "end of civil twilight" hunting rule. We go by our own abilities to see and ethically take the animal. Boar are often nocturnal and are best hunted from a stand under a cloudless full moon. Alternatively, you can do a driven game hunt, but that's a LOT of work and organization. Upside of that is that it's a true Austrian tradition, full of horns and sprigs from branches and ceremonies and prayers, etc, etc.
I would be remiss not to reinforce the importance of the culture and customs of hunting in Austria. There are standards of clothing, honoring the prey, language, horn music/signals, initiations (the one for your first boar is interesting LOL) and they lend a wonderful sense of fraternity and shared history with our hunting brethren. They say that the three things that define hunting are:
dress
language
hunting methods
Note that hunting methods themselves are only one-third of the whole!
Used as a greeting, best wishes for a hunt, and congratulations, I’ll end this with a hearty “Weidmanssheil!”
Useful links
There are a number of firms, local to different states, providing Jagdkarte Test preparation training via a combination of in-person and online courses. These are state-specific and subject to frequent change. Please contact your state hunting organization (see below) or local shooting range for advice and referrals.
Hunting license information by state:
Lower Austria: https://www.noe.gv.at/noe/Jagd-Fischerei/NOe_Jagdkarten.html
Burgenland: https://bgld-jagdverband.at/1_38_Jagdkarte.html
Upper Austria: https://www.land-oberoesterreich.gv.at/15480.htm
Vorarlberg: https://vorarlberg.at/-/vorarlberger-jagdkarte
All images © Ted Kempster 2023
