French wildlife and beekeeping

In France, some 14 million pheasants are reared in captivity every year for release into the wild at the start of the hunting period for the benefit of hunters, basically to be shot. Very soon, as I write this, we will see them wandering around in our French gardens and on our land. They are not a native species, although they have been in France since Roman times when they were introduced from Asia. In normal circumstances, their numbers would be very low, resulting from a high level of predation, often by foxes. In fact, a major reason why foxes are victimised is due to their killing of game birds. Now, a study has shown the harm they cause to our native species. The release of farmed pheasants exterminates populations of threatened and protected reptiles, and, like every year, they will resume to satisfy an increasingly controversial hobby called hunting: A scientific study has identified that areas where pheasants are released before the hunting season become biological deserts for...

In France the ferret has the status of domestic animal which is guaranteed to it by the order of August 11, 2006 , issued by the Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development, and as such anyone can own a ferret as a pet. However the use of ferrets for hunting creature such as rabbits is regulated in law and can only be practiced during the periods specified by the Prefecture each year. The followings departements also require an individual permit to be issued by the Prefecture. Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Hautes-Alpes, Alpes-Maritimes, Ariège, Ardèche, Aude, Aveyron, Bouches-du-Rhône, Cantal, Charente, Corrèze, South Corsica, Côtes d'Armor, Creuse, Dordogne, Finistère, Gard, Haute Garonne, Haute-Corse, Hérault, Haute-Loire, Hautes-Pyrénées, Haute-Savoie, Haute-Vienne, Gers, Gironde, Landes, Lot, Lot et Garonne, Lozère, Morbihan, Puy de Dôme, Pyrénées-Atlantiques,, Pyrénées-Orientales, Tarn et Garonne, Var, Vaucluse. It can be required to state the exact locality(s...

People often ask which days are hunting days in France, and the simple answer is that no National law prohibits hunting on any day of the week during the open hunting season. However, various Associations keep petitioning for Sundays to be hunt-free. Part of the confusion where it exists is that there isn’t simply one type of hunting or la chasse and that la chasse is often erroneously thought of as being uniquely chasse en battue that involves a minimum number of participants with some driving or flushing through an area using dogs pushing any animals, (boar, deer, fox), out into the open to where one or more hunters wait with guns. Usually this type of organised hunt takes place on two or three specific days of the week that are agreed at the commune level (ours is Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays) and the people that participate in this like to call themselves La Chasse.   However, rough shooting for smaller creatures, birds, rabbits, hares etc. can take place on any d...

What role, if any, does hunting play in the massive species population declines we are experiencing across the board in France? Hunting is one of those subjects that invariably divides people into being either for or against with both sides of the argument frequently suffering from the blindness and anger that comes with entrenched attitudes but the question that needs to be asked is how much harm results from hunting relative to other perhaps more acceptable activities when it comes to the declines in wildlife that we are witnessing?  Looked at objectively it soon becomes clear that although the practice of hunting may be abhorrent to many people it doesn’t really have any impact on the populations of deer and boar, (gros gibier or large game as they are known), which is the main form of hunting in France . Many birds are specifically bred to be hunted such as Pheasant, Red-legged Partridge & Mallard and as such don’t really count, (see link at the bottom). Where...

As this is another subject that keeps cropping up here is a little reminder that you don’t have to have the chasse trundling across your land or through your garden if you don’t want them there.  It would take far too much space to write everything about the subject, so to keep it simple, we could say that after the revolution hunting became something of a free for all until the main law which relates to the situation now was passed in 1964, the so called “Law Verdeille” named after Fernand Verdeille the senateur who proposed it. This regularised the situation somewhat and gave rights to hunters to form Associations known as d'associations communales de chasse agréées or ACCA which have a contract with the commune, (renewable every 5 years), and gave the rights to hunt on all the territory within that commune in return for an indemnity to control species that cause damage to agriculture or forestry. The only alternative to this was for landowners with 20 hectares or more to cr...

Many people fail to understand the different types of hunting in France and the methods used. British and French people alike refer to La Chasse, (the hunt), as if it was one thing or one group of people – nothing could be further from the truth. Spurred on by something I witnessed the other day I thought I would shine a little light on some aspects of what is called Chasse de loisir or Recreational hunting which generally falls into two sections, firstly what we would call wildfowling in the hunting of wild ducks, geese and waders and secondly what is called Rough shooting in the UK where shooters may use their trained dogs (usually Spaniels, Labradors or similar breeds) to flush game out of the hedgerows, woods or other cover as they walk along and often act as retrievers of any creatures shot. What I want to stick to here is the Rough shooting aspect and the species that mainly relates to are: Rabbits, Hares, Partridge, (Red-legged and Grey), Wood Pigeon, Stock Dove, Wo...

Due to the "peculiar nature" of the situation with the Ortolan Bunting in France I've chosen to blog this rather than use a page on the web site. T he situation in France . In Les Landes the Ortolan bunting is a species that has historically been captured to be eaten as a “Regional delicacy”, a food reserved mainly for the rich that was served in the best restaurants of Paris and the other large French cities and has graced the tables of the wealthy and  politicians for hundreds of years. It was for this reason that France derogated this species from the European Bird Directive. This led to something of a paradox because although the Ortolan bunting wasn't listed as protected in France neither was it included on the list of species permitted to be hunted. This enabled them to be captured alive, transported, kept in captivity, bought and sold and killed – BUT NOT HUNTED. In a few regions the practice of capturing them continued to be considered as “tr...

Skylark hunting in France - a tradition that should be confined to history books? Most people are unaware that Skylarks are still legally hunted in some member countries of the EU and are equally unaware of some of the methods used in the name of tradition. In France Skylarks can be shot anywhere in France during the open hunting season, normally set from around the middle to end of September until the end of February. In practice for most of France this may only amount to perhaps a few thousand in total although it’s unlikely that any serious reporting of numbers of kills takes place. The main hunting using clap nets takes place in the Departemnets of Gironde, Landes,  Lot-et-Garonne and Pyrénées-Atlantiques. This is from CABS. Although shooting of Skylarks is permitted in France , as in other Mediterranean countries, four French Départements also allow trapping of the endangered species in nets. In the Bordeaux region of Aquitaine 10,000 trapping insta...