The ringers

In Finland, ringing has always been based on voluntary work. The Finnish Museum of Natural History is responsible only for the hiring and wages of the Ringing Centre's staff, as well as for paying for rings and office equipment. Thus, in addition to travel and such costs the ringer has to pay for literature, climbing gear, protective headgear, safety harnesses, scales, measuring equipment, bird nets and other trapping gear. Only organisations upholding bird observatories have been able to pay a modest daily fee to ringers who have worked for a long time at the observatories.

The number of yearly active ringers has increased from the roughly twenty in the early days to the good five hundred active today. During the first decades ringing was the privilege of Masters and students, but times have changed. Nowadays, the civilian professions of the ringers vary a great deal, as every bird-watcher, who has passed the exams, can become a ringer. The Finnish ringer of today is a competent expert on birds, skilled and dedicated to his work.

The database of ringers at the Ringing Centre includes a total of 2,646 names. At the end of 2006 there were 703 valid permits. Despite the amount of women bird-watchers in Finland constantly rising ringing has – oddly enough – remained a strongly masculine hobby in our country, with only 56 (or 7 %) active ringers who are women.

The representative organ of the ringers is the Ringers' Committee elected at the annual Ringers' Meeting. It also issues statements to the Ringing Centre on all applications for ringing permits. The regular members of the committee in 2007 are Heikki Lokki (Chairman email: ), Annika Forstén (Secretary), Pekka Pouttu, Jussi Ryssy and Petri Suorsa with deputy members Teemu Honkanen and Kalevi Eklöf.