The bow lost, and the bow almost won

Only one country lost it

Of the 18 countries in the guide where the bow is prohibited today, only one, on the texts we have read, had it written into its rules and lost it. The idea this article started from counted more; with the dossiers re-read, few certain cases remained. In Latvia we found no text that ever allowed it, and in Romania the 1996 act asked for firearms only. Both came close, though. For a few other countries we have not read what the rules were before today’s ban, so we count them nowhere.

The article therefore tells two stories. One is the bow lost: Lithuania, the only case an official text shows, and Sweden, where a federation says so. The other is the bow almost won: four moments when one step, a single one, was not taken. How each ban came about is on the country pages; this is only the road.

Lithuania: four years, then four days

The Lithuanian hunting rules of 2000, in their wording of the time, listed at point 11.1.2, among the permitted tools, “bows and crossbows, with or without a scope”. Hunting with them required the same possession and carrying permit as a gun. We read that wording on a copy on a hunters’ website, not in the official register; in the register we found the indirect proof.

The proof is the 2002 hunting exam programme, an order of the Minister of Environment. Under tools, after bows and crossbows, a date stands in brackets: “until 1.04.2004”. The withdrawal was decided two years ahead. The order that took the bow out of the rules in 2004 we did not find, and its reasons we do not know.

The second episode is from May 2020. The Seimas, Lithuania’s parliament, had rejected the amendments to the act that would have opened the bow. The Minister of Environment nevertheless signed the order of 8 May 2020, which amended the rules and allowed the bow from April 2022. The press recorded the reactions the same week: the prime minister called it unacceptable, a member of parliament said they felt deceived by the minister. The minister signed a new order on 12 May, removing the provision. The exact wording of the bow provision we did not find; the accessible copies of the rules are already those after 12 May.

Since 2024, the Lithuanian hunting act names bows among the prohibited means. What had been a matter for a minister’s order moved into the act, and reopening it would now take a vote of the Seimas. The details are on the Lithuania page.

Sweden: 1938, and a trial that ended

The Swedish bowhunters’ federation writes that the bow was used for hunting in Sweden and that it was banned in 1938, and that the preparatory works of that law have not survived. We did not look for the 1938 text. So we have the federation’s word, not a text we read.

Better documented is the trial in enclosures. The Swedish environmental agency approved it in August 1998, and the federation ran it up to the final report, closed at the end of 2002. Just over thirty hunters qualified, under hard conditions: the Swedish exam for every weapon class, five years of hunting, two bow exams. Its conclusions, and what they did not measure, are in “What was read before the decision” and in “How a number travels”. What matters here is something else: the federation’s summary shows a permission tied to a trial, and the trial ended. The bow did not stay after it.

Almost: four steps not taken

Latvia, 20 June 2013: the final vote. The Ministry of Agriculture had worked for two years, with the hunters’ organisations, on a new hunting law that would have allowed the bow. At the third reading, the final one, the members rejected hunting with bows and crossbows and supported the rest of the proposals. The press recorded a protest outside parliament and a debate about “the amusements of the rich”. Today, the Latvian hunting act lists bows among the prohibited means.

In February 2026, the Latvian bowhunters’ association asked the parliamentary committee to strike the bow from that list. Its letter went into the file of bill 978/Lp14, a members’ bill on red deer areas and night optics that contains nothing about the bow. The committee did not support it in its wording of the time and sent it to a working group. The Latvia page keeps track.

Lithuania, 8–12 May 2020: the signature. The story is above. The bow was allowed on paper, from 2022, for four days.

Sweden, June 2018: the proposal ready. The environmental agency put complete rules out for consultation: compound bows only, at least 40 joules of arrow energy, eight species from roe deer to hare, the Swedish exam plus an international bowhunting certificate, and every arrow shot reported within 24 hours. The hunting press reported the agency’s proposal of June 2018 in detail, with the planned date of entry into force: 1 January 2019. The decision was postponed the same year, then again in 2021 to wait for the Finnish study. The agency’s new rules, of 2023, cover firearms only. The question of the bow gets a single line there: “the matter is tabled for now”. A joint request by the two hunting federations, the joint petition of March 2026, awaits an answer. The timeline is on the Sweden page.

Czechia, 2024–2025: the parliamentary term. The Czech government’s bill amending the hunting act, filed in June 2024, introduced a new section on the use of the bow: bowhunting after a separate exam, with a draw weight of at least 220 N. The bill was still at first reading when the term ended, and it lapsed with it. The ban in the animal protection act, in force since 1993, stayed untouched; it is on the Czechia page.

Romania has a story of this kind too, from 2008, with two votes in the Chamber of Deputies and a ban by name at the end of the same year. It needs an article of its own; for now, in short, it is on the Romania page.

What they have in common

The documents show one thing in common: in each case a finished text already existed. A law at its final vote, a signed order, rules with a date of entry into force, a bill filed by the government. None of them stopped at the stage of a request.

Why they stopped, the documents say less. In Latvia and Lithuania, the press recorded the public reactions of those days. In Sweden, the agency wrote that it was waiting for data. In Czechia, the bill fell with the parliamentary term, without a decision on the bow. Further than that we cannot go without guessing.

Our opinion, not a finding: anyone preparing such a change has something to gain from reading these cases. Not to learn which arguments won, because the documents do not give them, but to see how far a finished text got each time, and how quickly it could be turned back.

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