The proliferation of wild boars “requires a review of the method of compensation”: Gard senator Laurent Burgoa wants the State to pay

Control shooting is not enough to significantly reduce the number of wild boars. Midi Libre – MiKAEL ANISSET

While the wild boar hunting season opened on August 15 to combat overpopulation, the LR senator of Gard, Laurent Burgoa, proposes that the State replace the departmental hunting federations to reimburse the excessive damage caused by the animal.

The heat has prompted many hunters to keep their dogs until then, but since August 15, they have been able to track wild boars in forests and scrubland again, even before the general opening of the season on September 8. This is a way of combating their proliferation, which has become so difficult to manage that hunts are even authorized from June 1. “Since a decision by Ségolène Royal, then Minister of the Environment, wild boar can be hunted almost all year round”, recalls LR senator for Gard Laurent Burgoa, himself a nemrod in his spare time.

The figures speak for themselves. In 2022, a record year, 842,802 wild boars were officially killed – or taken according to the hunting term – in France, compared to 35,000 at the beginning of the 1970s. An exponential curve that also applies to the cost of damage caused by big game on farms of all types. Nationally, they have increased from €10 million in 1990 to more than €60 million. in 2022, and most of it is caused by wild boars.

LR Senator for Gard, Laurent Burgoa. Midi Libre – ALEXIS BETHUNE

However, since 1969, in order to remove the right to hide which authorized farmers to kill animals damaging their crops, it is the hunters themselves, through the departmental federations, who have been footing the bill. But it is becoming so salty, "that some federations are on the verge of bankruptcy", warns Senator Burgoa, who has just tabled a bill to review this method of compensation.

In twenty years, the number of wild boars killed has increased considerably. Infographic Antoine Llop

Up to 1 million euros of damage

In the Gard, which inspired him to write his text, “between 35,000 and 40,000 wild boars are killed each year, and yet, there are around 600,000 euros of damage, a figure which recently rose to 1 million euros”, indicates the parliamentarian. Problem, another curve is falling, significantly, that of the number of hunters, 13,000 today in the department against 30,000 at the beginning of the 80s, “while it is their contributions that finance these costs. Hunters even pay twice: to the federation when they pay the annual hunting fee, then to their municipal society which passes on part of the sum that it must also pay for these compensations”.

One solution could obviously be to increase this share claimed from hunters, “but it is a leisure activity that must remain popular. If money makes it an elitist activity, there will be even fewer people”. However, Laurent Burgoa assures us, without denying the actions of some who promote the reproduction of the species to guarantee the presence of game, “hunters are doing their utmost to regulate the wild boar whose proliferation is also due to the disappearance of predators such as the wolf, the increase in the area of ​​forests or climate change which offers them more food”.

“There are still some”

Efforts that are not enough. When it came time to draw up the annual report last year, Philippe Coste, the president of the Hérépian cooperative winery responsible for the game damage file at the Hérault Chamber of Agriculture, estimated that, despite the 23,000 animals hunted during the season, “there are 30 or 40,000 left at the end. Twenty years ago, they were only in the mountains, now they are everywhere”, he assured, deploring the numerous damages also caused in the department, notably in the vineyards where the animals come to pick the grapes, especially in times of drought. A bill of some 300,000 euros for the Hérault hunting federation, despite an investment of 150,000 euros in fencing. Discussions between representatives of farmers and hunters have been relaunched locally, but the subject remains sensitive. Last January, a wild boar's head was hung on the gate of the Hérault hunting lodge, with demands asking that farmers be allowed to manage the problem on their land, in particular by having the right to set traps.

“As for the wolf”

Gard and Hérault are, with Loir-et-Cher, among the three departments where the most wild boars are killed, “but the problem is national”, says Laurent Burgoa, who, faced with the population figures announced for the short and medium term, therefore calls the State to take charge“100%” compensation due to farmers, “as it does for the wolf“. “This will secure agricultural activity and ensure the proper functioning of hunting federations”, defends the senator.

A proposal that could politically achieve consensus, eighteen months after the adoption of a national protocol aimed at reducing wild boar numbers by 20 to 30% ? We'll see. “I'm not sure that the new National Assembly will be very favorable to it", fears Laurent Burgoa, who nevertheless is impatiently awaiting the reopening of the Palais Bourbon, even more than the small game hunting season he is an aficionado, to see his bill debated.

The return of buckshot in 30 departments

The government signed a decree on June 7, which validates a series of measures intended to combat the overpopulation of wild boars. They were inspired by the 2023 protocol presented as historic and signed by the agricultural and hunting worlds, with the state as arbitrator, which had then also delivered an envelope of 20 million euros intended to finance part of the damage. These measures include the authorization to use buckshot again, which had been banned since 1986 because it was considered too dangerous due to possible ricochets. The executive responded to the request of departmental federations that consider that this ammunition, which disperses lead shot, is more effective than a single bullet and therefore provides a better chance of success, provided that it is used wisely: a shot at short distance and in a closed biotope. For the time being, moreover, after tests deemed conclusive in Corsica and in the Landes, buckshot is only authorized in thirty departments, including Aude, Gard and Pyrénées-Orientales in the former Languedoc-Roussillon. This agreement also provides for the extension of the period of feeding and trapping, but also the facilitation of the declaration of damage caused by game.

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