Paris (AFP)
Sweeter winters, acorns and corn in abundance: wild boars abound in France, much to the chagrin of farmers whose crops they ravage and hunters who say they can no longer afford the damage.
As elsewhere in Europe, the population of wild boar has multiplied in France in recent decades: 36,000 were killed in the early 1970s, 750,000 in 2017.
The reasons for this demographic explosion? Wild boars reproduce quickly and milder winters favor the survival of the young. Their natural predators have been eliminated. These omnivores enjoy food in the forest (acorns, chestnuts, fennels), but also in the fields. They are fond of maize grown on large areas in France, can easily hide in large plots and also adapt well to peri-urban areas.
For a long time, the hunting of this rare animal in the post-war period, was made "so as to ensure the preservation or even the development", emphasized in March a parliamentary report. That is, avoiding killing breeding adults, especially the wild, by releasing wild boars into the wild or feeding them.
This led to an increase in agricultural damage, particularly on maize, soft wheat and grasslands, to the point that Christiane Lambert, president of the first agricultural union, the FNSEA, publicly criticized hunters for not doing enough. .
Hunters are responsible for compensating farmers. For the 2016-17 hunting season, they have paid 37 million euros in compensation for "big game", of which the wild boar is the main culprit. By adding the costs of damage estimates, file management and prevention actions, the bill would rise to 60 million, according to the parliamentary report.
"These problems are not evenly spread over the territory," says AFP Eric Marboutin, the National Office of Hunting and Wildlife (ONCFS). The damage is concentrated in the East and the center: "19 departments concentrate 50% of the amounts compensated," according to the parliamentary report.
- Shoot all the boars? -
"We are no longer financially able to pay," said Willy Schraen, president of the National Federation of Hunters (FNC), who will address the subject at the general meeting of the organization Tuesday and Wednesday.
There was a common national pot for these indemnifications. But it has just been abolished by the government in favor of a system of compensation at the local level, with the idea of giving greater responsibility to the departmental hunting federations.
"There are plenty of territories that we can not control," said Willy Schraen, citing peri-urban areas where it is impossible to hunt with firearms because too dangerous, protected natural areas or forests where the owners refuse the hunt.
"We want to change the law," he says, so as not to be the only ones to pay the amount of the damage.
Thierry Chalmin, who follows the file at the FNSEA, claims the "free shot of the wild boar", that is to say that hunters no longer save spawners or females with young, and if necessary the use of trapping in peri-urban area.
The parliamentary report goes in this direction by recommending to "ban all restrictive instructions for hunting", but also to reduce the size of agricultural plots to limit the possibilities of hiding for wild boars.
In addition to the damage in the fields, the proliferation of wild boars worries farmers because of the threat of swine fever, viral disease highly contagious (not transmissible to humans), present in Belgium. "It would be a disaster for pig farmers," says Thierry Chalmin.
The Ministry of Ecological Transition, for its part, highlights recent measures: prohibition to release wild boars in the wild, limitation of agrainage, which is to lure game with grain in the forest or financial accountability of federations departmental.
Remains to solve the thorny financial issue, according to hunters who are waiting at their AG the Minister of Agriculture Didier Guillaume, the Secretary of State for the ecological transition Emmanuelle Wargon and the President of the FNSEA.
© 2019 AFP