Nearly 100,000 hunters are expected to take part in waterfowl hunting season, which began at noon on Sunday and continues until the end of December.
On Thursday, the Finnish Wildlife Agency reminded hunters that they must take responsibility for the management of duck and geese stocks and urged them focus their hunting on the most plentiful species.
"Hunting should be targeted at abundant species whose population development has been favourable," it said in a statement.
"Based on the catch statistics, the mallard, teal and common goldeneye are the three most common waterfowl prey species," said Mikko Alhainen, a senior planning officer at the Wildlife Agency.
During hunting season, hunters may also legally take aim at species classified as facing population decline. The species include garganey ducks, wigeons, northern pintails, northern shovelers, tufted ducks and coots. For some of these species, hunters are required to report how many are shot.
Hunters have been allowed to hunt greylag geese and Canada geese on fields since 10 August, but hunting these species is now also permitted on bodies of water.
More than half of bear permits contested
The bear hunt also started on Sunday. However, according to the Finnish Wildlife Agency, this autumn is exceptional, because due to a large number of officially filed complaints, most of the permits are frozen so hunting cannot start in many places outside the reindeer herding areas of northern Finland.
Processing of the complaints may take months or even years so many of those permits are likely to go unused this season.
"As a result of the complaints, most of the permits are frozen and in many places it will not be possible to hunt on 20 August," Wildlife Agency communications director Klaus Ekman said last week.
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The agency approved nearly 200 permits to shoot bears outside the reindeer husbandry area this autumn. Complaints were filed regarding 111 of these permits.
There are separate hunting quotas for the reindeer herding areas. Up to 60 bears can be killed in the eastern reindeer herding area, along with 10 in the western district.
Earlier this year the Natural Resources Centre (Luke) estimated that there were 2,250-2,400 bears in Finland, 16 percent lower than a year earlier.
Beavers, hare and grouse up for grabs
On Sunday, hunting season also began for Canadian beavers, which were introduced to Finland in the early 1900s after the native European species was hunted to extinction. The European beaver population has rebounded since some were re-introduced from Norway. Canadian beaver hunting is allowed through April.
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Next up on the hunting calendar is the mountain hare, which is in hunters' crosshairs from 1 September until the end of February. Grouse hunting season starts on 10 September. This covers black grouse, hazel grouse, willow grouse and capercaillie, which is also known as wood grouse.