It’s 6:00 AM and the obsidian darkness lingers outside my windshield. I arrive in the Kársnes neighbourhood of Kópavogur, park my car, and hop into Kristján Andri Einarsson’s black Jimny. The hunter greets me with a boyish smirk, ready for today’s adventure. He is wearing a camouflage cap on his greying auburn hair. Until this day, I have never gone hunting, nor seen a real gun in my life. All that is about to change.
We drive northeast towards Þingvellir National Park. My knowledge of the feathery creature we are stalking today is quite limited, and I suddenly wonder if I made a mistake by wearing bright colours. Kristján dispels my worries, explaining that rock ptarmigans (rjúpur) don’t care about camouflage (at least when it’s not their own), and that my flashy attire could save us from a rather unfortunate fate: becoming the hunted instead of the hunter.
The ptarmigan hunting season just started a week ago, on October 20. While we drive the bumpy road towards Uxahryggir, north of Þingvellir, Kristján tells me about his last hunt earlier this week, where he went “onward to the red dead,” or, in Icelandic, “fram í rauðan dauðann.” It’s a phrase that means he was not backing down, continuing as long as possible. “I had to chase the bird for so long. It would run on the hillside, I would get into position, and then it would fly away again. They usually don’t act like that in the snow. They are more confident when they’re camouflaged.” Finally, somebody is talking about camouflage, the only thing I know about hunting. Ironically, the white coat the ptarmigans have moulted into for the long Icelandic winter is entirely useless at the moment, as snow hasn’t arrived in the lowlands yet. “I think we’ll probably see one bird. Hopefully. But I have come here without seeing any. I don’t want to jinx it or get your hopes up too much,” the hunter carefully says. We arrive at a small parking lot in the middle of nowhere, next to an emergency shelter. It’s dawn. We park alongside a truck: another hunter has already started their pursuit.
Things of the past
As we step through the highland landscapes, we leave behind deep footprints in the soft, bright-green moss. I wonder how long it takes until our presence becomes invisible again. The sky above us slowly starts to burst with orange and pink hues, and the frosty-blue night sky whispers its goodbye. Kristján carries the shotgun on his right shoulder. It’s a family heirloom. “The hunt is what connects me to my father’s roots back in East Iceland,” he explains. Kristján recalls his first-ever ptarmigan hunt: “I went with my father and his brother. I was around 13 years old. We went to the same spot we’re going to today. And my father got a bird, if I remember correctly. The first bird I ever shot was on Ok glacier. The former glacier.” Kristján’s father Einar died in 2016, just two years after the glacier Ok.
Apart from being a family tradition for Kristján, ptarmigan hunting is also deeply ingrained in Icelandic culture including the country’s biggest holiday. “There are people, like my family, that just can’t imagine Christmas without ptarmigan. The smell and the taste are simply a part of Christmas for a lot of people.”
Áki Ármann Jónsson from the Icelandic Hunting Association, Skotvís, elucidates: “This is cultural heritage. Any politician who has ever tried to limit ptarmigan hunting was not in politics for very long […]. It’s not the hunters alone, because we have about 5,000 hunters but they all have families. According to surveys, 10% of the nation eats ptarmigan on Christmas.”
In Kristján’s family, having ptarmigan as a Christmas dish is a long-standing tradition, reaching further back than just his father’s generation. Traditionally, the hunted ptarmigans are hung outside for a couple of days before further preparation, which gives them a unique taste. The first written record of the tradition is from 1760 in the cookbook Pipar í öllum mat (Pepper in All Food) by Eggert Ólafsson. The first ptarmigan recipe specifically for Christmas is from 1897 in the historic cookbook Kvennafræðarinn (The Housewife’s Guide).
In the past, it was more customary to prepare lamb or meat soup on Christmas, while ptarmigan was eaten in households that couldn’t afford to slaughter one of their animals. Back then, ptarmigans were a means of survival. “We’ve been hunting ptarmigan for a very long time. But usually, it was the poor man’s dinner,” Áki remarks.
Áki explains that ptarmigan was also hunted for export, as while across Iceland bartering was the norm, but Danish and Norwegian ships would pay cash for the birds. In the early 19th century, the ptarmigans inhabiting Iceland’s heaths and highland numbered in the millions. During the peaks of their population cycles, they were exported to Europe in numbers reaching up to 300,000 birds. In 2003 selling ptarmigan became illegal in Iceland, and until today it can only be hunted for personal consumption. The lucrative meat market was closed and the hunting numbers declined dramatically.
Symbiosis of two species
While I wait inside the entrance of the Icelandic Institute of Natural History to meet Ólafur Nielsen, a biologist and ornithologist by training, I see two hunters waiting as well, holding brown paper bags. Ólafur opens the door and excitedly rushes to accept the precious cargo. Unfazed, he pulls out a white wing flecked heavily with blood. The ornithologist explains that about 10% of ptarmigan hunters send in the wings of their prey so scientists can determine the age of the birds. “We don’t do it for fun; we collect this data to estimate the population size and demographics.”
Ólafur and his team also count living ptarmigans in the spring, the so-called “breeding population.” After the chicks hatch in June, another census is conducted. All three data sets are part of a statistical model which estimates the population size, demographics, and mortality rates of the birds. The rock ptarmigan population in Iceland fluctuates between years, depending on different environmental factors. “The cycles are not completely regular. But since the turn of the century, the population has peaked approximately every five years,” Ólafur elucidates. The last such peak occurred in 2018, with close to one million rock ptarmigans in the country.
Apart from the optional wing deliveries, all ptarmigan hunters have to turn in a report to the Environmental Agency at the end of each season in which they declare the details of their expeditions. “The majority of the hunters are honest people who want to do this the right way,” Ólafur explains. “We also have another way of estimating the total harvest that is totally independent from the hunting report. It’s a survey that estimates total ptarmigan consumption. Fortunately, there’s a pretty good harmony between what the hunters say they caught, and what’s estimated as eaten.”
Besides humans, rock ptarmigans have many wild predators, such as the introduced North American mink, the Arctic fox, and predatory birds. The harsh Icelandic winter is also a major threat. “The only specialised predator is the gyrfalcon,” Ólafur tells me. “Their life is centred on the ptarmigan. If the ptarmigan were to go extinct, then the gyrfalcon would too.” Usually, the gyrfalcon population peaks shortly after the ptarmigan population, though Ólafur observes that both peaks are getting lower. “We see a long-term decline in both the ptarmigan and gyrfalcon numbers.”
Debating on the future
Ólafur and other scientists at the Icelandic Institute of Natural History supply the Environment Agency of Iceland with their data, which then uses it to set hunting regulations each year. But there are also two other parties sitting at the negotiating table: the Icelandic Hunting Association and their counterpart, BirdLife Iceland. There are no explicit limitations on the ptarmigan hunt, such as a bag limit, the hunt is instead restricted via the length of the hunting period. So when the ptarmigan population is decreasing, the hunting period is shortened correspondingly.
This year, a new management model was introduced to increase the sustainability of the ptarmigan hunt. “Over the years, we have been experimenting with different systems, the system we’ve been using since 2005 has now been abandoned and we have been using a new population model,” Ólafur says. According to that model, the Icelandic rock ptarmigan population can withstand 25 hunting days during the current season without falling below the average population size.
Áki Ármann Jónsson openly disagrees with using the length of the season to manage the ptarmigan hunt: “The number of allowed hunting days doesn’t matter because each hunter only ever goes for three or four days: they go over one weekend to get their ptarmigan for Christmas dinner. So it doesn’t matter if the season is 30 days or 35 days.” According to Áki, there are about 4,000 to 5,000 hunters in Iceland who hunt approximately ten ptarmigans each. Within the last ten years, hunting numbers have been quite stable, ranging between 27,000 and 45,000, and hardly ever exceeding 50,000 ptarmigans per season. Áki would still appreciate a longer hunting period simply for practical reasons. “In the future, even if we have one million birds and we still hunt 50,000 of them, we want 45 days to do it. So we can pick the best weekend. I want to go when there is snow and the weather is nice.”
Ólafur explains the battle of interests diplomatically: “Áki is the chairman of the Icelandic Hunting Association and they want to have as many days as possible. And then the other interest group is BirdLife Iceland. If you made the goals more liberal, then you’d get more days. But if you make them more restricted, you get fewer days. So there is kind of a tug of war.” Speaking of war, the three parties involved seem to not only disagree on the restrictions of the hunt, but also their methodological approach, going as far as accusing the other party of not adhering to scientific principles. It was quite surprising to hear that rock ptarmigans could provoke such a row.
While the views of all board members highly differ, they all agree on their goal to ensure the rock ptarmigan’s long-term survival in Iceland. “We care about the ptarmigan. Having a lot of ptarmigans is also our goal, so we can hunt,” Áki stresses. “So when I started, I went to BirdLife Iceland, and said, ‘Look, we may not agree on hunting ptarmigans or not, but we can agree that climate change is a threat. We can agree that the loss of biodiversity and habitat is a threat for the ptarmigan.’”
No peaks for the ptarmigan
The population cycles of the ptarmigans differ widely between the six hunting regions in Iceland. “The populations in different parts of Iceland are slightly out of phase. Here in the west, it’s close to peak numbers this summer,” Ólafur explains. Within the last two years, the ptarmigan reproduction in the Northeast of Iceland has been quite grim. “Breeding success is very important regarding the size of the huntable population. And bad breeding seasons have been occurring more and more frequently.” The scientist continues: “During the open season, approximately 80% of the birds are juveniles. Some years we have had breeding failures, and that has great consequences for the huntable population. This spring we had quite many ptarmigans up in the northeast, and normally the autumn population would have been between 500,000 and 600,000 birds, but in reality, it was about 300,000 birds.” The rock ptarmigan chicks are sensitive to the elements. When harsh weather and heavy rain hit the region over the summer, many of them died. “We have monitored the reproduction up in the northeast since 1964. And we have had, if I remember correctly, five incidents of breeding failure during this period. And three of them were within the last four years. That’s a major catastrophe for the rock ptarmigan.”
The rock ptarmigan population has been on a steady decline since its glory days in the early 20th century. “Now the autumn population is probably something around 300,000 birds,” Ólafur says. “I’m talking about Iceland as a whole. We don’t see the big peaks anymore. And the decrease started decades ago, we have to go back at least 70 years for the last big peak. There have been major changes in the environment here in Iceland since then.”
A ghost from the past
The rock ptarmigan came to Iceland from Greenland at the end of the Pleistocene, commonly referred to as the Ice Age, Ólafur explains to me. Its close relative, the willow ptarmigan, also inhabits northern regions but has never made its way to Greenland, hence also didn’t land in Iceland. Climate change is heavily affecting arctic species, drastically altering their habitats all around the globe. The birds are adapted to the cold weather, so they change plumage and even develop their own set of feathery snowshoes for the winter. “They expect snow in the hills in October and they turn completely white. Now, if you look at Mount Esja, there is no snow below 800 metres [2,600 feet]. So life becomes hard for them. Both hiding from hunters but also from other predators like the gyrfalcon.” Áki puts forth a dire prediction: “In 50 years there will be no ptarmigans in Iceland.”
Apart from climate change, Ólafur also criticises the Icelandic Forestry Service’s efforts to reforest wide parts of the landscape. While the lowlands used to be covered in birch forests before Iceland’s first settlers arrived around 870 AD, surviving on the barren island called for rigorous deforestation and the grazing of livestock prevented its resurgence. “This is what ecologists call cultural landscapes. This open landscape that they created, it’s tundra-like. It’s this habitat that is so valuable for the rock ptarmigan.” According to the ornithologist, continued afforestation would destroy the breeding habitats of the ptarmigan. “I think the future for the rock ptarmigan is quite bleak. Because of those changes, we will end up with a ptarmigan population like they have in Scotland or the Alps, a very small population living in marginal areas.” This future issue unites all members of the board. Climate change creates a highly hostile environment for the Icelandic rock ptarmigan, making life for this bird even tougher than it is. The absence of ptarmigans would not only eliminate ptarmigan hunting as a part of Icelandic culture and tradition, but it would also cause a chain reaction that further minimises biodiversity, as the gyrfalcon can’t survive without the rock ptarmigan.
Stalking in solitude
Back by Þingvellir, Kristján crosses a fence on our path. The hunter tells me that he’s quite glad we’re hunting on a weekday. On the weekend, he says, “the Skjaldbreiður area becomes a warzone. You hear bangs every 10 minutes. That’s why I never go there, I don’t want to be fighting all the people just to find some birds,” he laughs. For many hunters, a crucial part of the hunting process is the solitude. “It’s just an enjoyable experience, especially when you’re alone. You can think. It’s almost cleansing in a way. It’s not to quell some primal, bloodthirsty urge or anything like that.” Kristján pauses and sighs, “But I also admit, sometimes, I feel bad for the animal. But I think that’s natural. It’s a living thing. You have to show respect for the ptarmigan.”
As we cross some small, frozen puddles, the last remnants of the sunrise reflect the barren landscape onto their crisp surface. After hiking about ten kilometres through the wilderness, we still haven’t seen a single living creature apart from ourselves. Suddenly, some tiny snow buntings rise above our heads, chittering as if mocking our failed attempt. After stumbling upon a white feather indicating the nightly resting place of a rock ptarmigan, we decide to turn back from our stalking adventure. Today is no “fram í rauðann dauðann” day. Kristján stores his shotgun in the car and we return to the civilised reality of Reykjavík. I look up at the bright-blue winter sky and a lone bird passes by. It seems to be a gyrfalcon flying in the direction from which we just returned. Maybe it will have more luck on its hunt. As long as there are still rock ptarmigans left.
