A wild boar (illustration) -

Dmitry Feoktistov / TASS / Sipa USA / SIPA

  • The city of Montpellier decided at the end of last year to terminate the agreements which made available land belonging to it for hunting.

  • The decision aroused the anger of hunters, but also of certain elected officials.

  • Among their arguments, the risk of seeing a proliferation of wild boars at the gates of the city, with, for consequences, damage to the plots and accidents.

The city of Montpellier (Hérault) has decided that there will no longer be a single shot on land that belongs to it: it has initiated the termination of the agreements which allowed associations to hunt on its land.

The measure aims to prevent accidents, allow walkers to reclaim nature and also put an end to a practice that environmentalists consider cruel.

But can we really do without hunters?

No, according to Vincent Tarbouriech, the head of the departmental service of the French Office for Biodiversity.

“They are the only ones able to regulate wild fauna, and in particular the problems linked to the presence of wild boars, which are increasingly numerous in the Montpellier metropolis,” he explains.

Louveterie lieutenants [volunteers] can intervene from time to time, with prefectural decrees, to place trap cages in urbanized areas where hunters cannot access, but this remains temporary.

"

Damage to plots, to farmers, and road accidents?

In recent days, elected officials have stepped up to denounce this measure.

In particular Laurent Jaoul (without label), the mayor of Saint-Brès, that the end of the hunt in Montpellier has ulcerated.

In addition to the ancestral tradition and the values ​​that its ban would jeopardize, the elected representative also points to the risk of seeing game increase.

"The proliferation of wild boars will be a real problem," he scolds.

We have already seen them on the esplanade, in front of the Corum… The risks are the damage to private plots, to fences, to farmers.

And road accidents.

"

The escapades, often nocturnal, of the wild boars, to find food, are indeed regularly the happiness of social networks.

But not always residents.

In a letter sent a few days ago to the State services, an inhabitant of La Martelle, said to have had "the visit of one or more wild boars" in his garden, on the night of January 31 to February 2.

It is not the first time.

It is even recurring.

“They can cause serious accidents, for motorists, but also for two-wheelers,” he laments.

They are also a danger for the many walkers who roam the bushy areas with children and dogs.

In our case, these animals destroyed a tree and flower plantations.

Nothing serious, but we are afraid to come face to face with one or more of these animals.

"

"We kill them all the way to Fréjorgues et Lattes"

Not long ago, the establishment of trap cages by the Federation of Hunters of Hérault made it possible to capture 183 wild boars, at the gates of Montpellier.

"Without these trap cages, there would perhaps be 1,000 more boars in town," assures its president, Jean-Pierre Gaillard.

There are a lot of wild boars, they come in via Juvignac, la Mosson, Lunaret park, Lez.

They go down to the sea. Some are killed as far as Fréjorgues and Lattes.

Each year, 20,000 wild boars are killed in the Hérault.

And on average, 10,000 females.

If you don't kill them, each will have six cubs, that's 60,000 cubs.

"

So far, no village in the metropolis has said it intends to make the same decision as the city-center.

On Monday, the mayor, Michaël Delafosse (PS), also clarified that this measure only concerned his town, and that each mayor was "free to define his strategy".

For Vincent Tarbouriech, of the Biodiversity Office, “if all the towns in the metropolis were to make the same decision, withdraw their hunting rights from local hunting companies, there would no longer be enough hunting pressure on the area. wild boar population, and therefore a risk of population explosion ”.

"It's very unlikely"

For her part, Coralie Mantion (EELV), the elected in charge of the file at the Montpellier town hall, sweeps away any risk of proliferation of wild boars.

"There are not many wild boars in the territories where we had hunting conventions that we have established," she confides.

On the other hand, these conventions only concern recreational hunting, rabbits and birds.

Birds that shouldn't be hunted.

"

Our file on hunting

And if, "but it is not very probable", continues the elected ecologist, "there are really too many wild boars", beatings can be carried out by prefectural orders.

Coralie Mantion emphasizes, moreover, that there are "alternatives" to the hunting of wild boars, including the installation of natural repellents, which do not degrade the crops, of electric barriers or even of living hedges, that the wild boars do not cross. not.

“You have to put all of this in place first before you say to yourself: we're going to chase them away.

"

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