Romain Rouillard / Photo credit: JOEL SAGET / AFP 6:24 p.m., March 6, 2024
The wild boar population is experiencing an exponential increase across the four corners of France.
These mammals, with their exceptional adaptation capacities, have several parameters favorable to their development at high speed. A proliferation far from being without consequences.
Seeing a family of wild boars land in the middle of the street is hardly surprising in certain regions of France.
The mammal, whose weight can easily reach 80kg as an adult, is in full proliferation in France.
A phenomenon that is also observed elsewhere in Europe and the United States and causes a certain amount of damage.
For farmers, firstly, faced with the devastation caused by these wild boars who scratch and dig in the earth, sometimes destroying significant areas within farms.
The animal, which traditionally resides in the forest and far from towns, is increasingly venturing into inhabited areas, thus crossing paths with motorists with all the risks that this entails.
With trains, collision is often unavoidable and causes significant delays.
15% of them are directly linked to clashes with wild animals, primarily wild boars.
If their presence on French territory is nothing new, the increase in the number of individuals recorded is quite alarming.
And is explained by different factors.
@nantes.est.incredible A wild boar observed walking around the city center of Nantes!
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More food, more forest
“First of all, it is an extremely opportunistic species which adapts everywhere and very easily,” indicates Thierry Coste, lobbyist and political advisor to the National Federation of Hunters.
The one who participated in the creation of the “Rural Alliance” list for Europeans, before withdrawing, puts forward another reason linked, this time, to global warming.
“There are no longer the episodes of cold that we may have had before. Before, some wild boars would die at the end of winter, now, this is no longer the case,” he points out.
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Generally speaking, the wild boar has "all the criteria" to develop exponentially.
Particularly food, which is increasingly abundant.
“Agriculture has increased and the forest has expanded. And, above all, corn cultivation has increased,” observes Thierry Coste.
Not to mention the food distributed to them, involuntarily or not, by the inhabitants of the areas in which they live.
Rampant urbanization can also provide an explanation for this proliferation of mammals.
“We built a lot of houses in areas that were also frequented by wild boars.”
Animals that adapt perfectly to human presence.
“It is not a fearful animal, it is perfectly used to humans,” underlines Thierry Coste.
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Restricted hunting zones
Although these residential areas do not in any way disrupt the behavior of wild boars, they restrict hunting areas and thus slow down the regulation of the animals.
"There are areas that are less easily accessible for hunting and others in which hunting is prohibited for X reason. And the animals are not crazy. They see clearly when a territory is less hunted than another and they settle there.
To balance the scales, hunters must, in places, extend their hunting periods, "even against their own advice", insists Thierry Coste.
“Me, in my department, Var, we close hunting on January 15, because it’s tradition. And now, it is obligatory until February 28.”
To curb the scourge, Thierry Coste suggests, firstly, “not leaving areas where very opportunistic animals can adapt”.
"If a territory is hunted four times a year, and all around there is hunting every weekend, obviously the wild boars will concentrate there. To be able to manage this proliferation, we must be able to manage the "entire territory", assures Thierry Coste.
In 2021, more than 842,000 wild boars were harvested throughout France, according to data from the OFB-FNC-FDC Wild Ungulates network.
There were around 35,000 in the mid-1970s.