Wild boars: Senator Burgoa no longer wants hunters to pay alone for damage to agricultural land

Laurent Burgoa, sénateur du Gard… et chasseur. MIDI LIBRE – Adrien Boudet

Une initiative saluée par la Fédération départementale des chasseurs du Gard, dans un contexte de baisse du nombre d'adhérents.

This will be one of the big projects of the most hunter of Gard senators for 2024. Laurent Burgoa wants to present a bill that is dear to him. It aims to ensure that compensation for damage caused by big game to farmers ceases to fall solely on the shoulders of hunters. “Currently, this represents 200,000 euros in compensation per year, which is solely provided by hunters' contributions, explained Laurent Burgoa during his greetings to the press this Thursday. Today, we are going to make a bill so that the State can help finance the damage."

What exactly is Laurent Burgoa talking about ? He is referring to the equalization fund? and compensation for damage for farmers which is activated as soon as a farmer is the victim of damage caused by large game (deer, deer and especially wild boar). A fund effectively funded by specific participation from hunters via their hunting license. "This dates back to the big game law of 1968, which was amended in 2000", specifies the director of the Federation of Gard Hunters Marc Vallat.

200 fewer hunters each year

However, the high population of wild boars in the department (40,000 wild boars killed per year), corroborated with the drop in the number of hunters  (13,500 today in Gard, a drop of 200 permits per year, according to the Fédé), will inevitably lead to an increase in this damage and difficulties in paying contributions. The initiative is clearly welcomed by the Gard federation. "We are even at the initiative of this reform project, which was shared at the national level, indicates Marc Vallat. We thank the senator for taking it up. If all goes well, the bill could be presented in the first half of 2024. We ask that the State take sole responsibility for compensation. This will be both reassuring for the agricultural world and for hunting stakeholders."

On the side of the Gard ecologists, we do not yet have a clear opinion on the question of this compensation, even if we emphasize that it is indeed the hunters who ;#39;responsible for regulating wild boar populations. But if some point to the practice of agrainage at the national level, Colin Gril, deputy secretary of EELV in Nîmes, wants to be cautious: "In France, these practices exist and contribute to proliferating wild boars. But I don't know if it concerns Gard. Likewise, crosses between pigs and wild boars, in the Gard, I don't think there are any. We are not at all a pig farming land." 

Clear ground, therefore, for Laurent Burgoa, who should not necessarily encounter much opposition, at least locally, on the path to his PPL. A text which would certainly do good for hunters but which, however, will not resolve the problem of the proliferation of wild boars in the department and beyond.

I subscribe to read more