Illustration of a wild boar.

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Michael Probst / AP / SIPA

  • Despite the exemptions, the regulatory hunts have not been sufficient.

  • In three sectors of Pas-de-Calais, a significant overpopulation of wild boars was observed.

  • These animals will be the subject of coordinated hunts over the next weekend.

Wild boars, collateral victims of confinement.

When the new containment measures to fight the coronavirus epidemic were decreed a month ago, hunters could benefit from exemptions.

The argument, according to the authorities, was to allow a "regulation" of the harmful species responsible for damage to the farms.

Obviously, this was not enough.

With a few simplified administrative procedures, hunters from the Nord and Pas-de-Calais could continue to devote themselves to their favorite hobby during confinement under the guise of participating "in missions of general interest" and provided that they were limited to to kill only the species appearing on a specific list.

If the hunters do not mobilize, they will have to pay

According to the administrative authorities, supported by the farmers, animals like the wild boar had had every opportunity to proliferate during the first confinement for lack of hunters to hunt them.

A de facto overpopulation, also recognized by animal protection associations but whose origin would rather, for them, be linked to poor management on the part of hunters.

According to the Pas-de-Calais prefecture, the regulatory hunts authorized in recent weeks have not been enough to significantly reduce the populations of wild boar in three sectors of the department.

The representative of the State and the Federation of Hunters have therefore organized coordinated hunts in these three sectors next weekend.

Over a day, or even two, all the hunters in the same sector will therefore focus entirely on the “regulation” of the boar.

It will be up to the federations to mobilize their troops in numbers.

"Otherwise, it is not excluded to make them participate in the compensation for damage to game," said the prefecture.

It was not specified the quantity of animals to be "removed" in each sector.

Society

Containment in the Tarn: The exemption for the hunting of wildlife suspended

Miscellaneous

Loire-Atlantique: A man prosecuted for slaughtering his two domestic pigs

  • Confinement

  • Hunt

  • Planet

  • Boar