France in Focus

We have a big boar that lives in the brambles at the end of our plot. Whenever I walk that way I clap my hands a few times and it ups and leaves into the deep woods.
I am rethinking my strategy today however. I’ve just read about a poor lady who was knocked over by a large boar (which had already pushed a Rottweiler to one side) while gardening. I should say that there was a battu going on so I would definitely not be out while that was going on.
Then I read about a boar weighing in at over 170kg and over a metre tall that had a collision with a forestry machine and had to be put down by the chasse. The discussion continued as to why it was so big. Plenty of food in the form of maize apparently.
My mind turned to the new rules about composting. OMG we’re going to have rats the size of dogs and boar the size of ponies roaming around the department plundering composting sites.

Think positive - boars are edible.

When are we likely to get some official info about the new recycling rules?

I thought boar could reach pretty impressive sizes anyway? Mix in the hybrids between farmed piggies and wild boar and nous voilà le super-pig If there are any lurking in our nearby woods they're going to have a field-day on my veg plot, still heaving with topanimbours which I can't harvest without sinking in up to the knees. On the bright side, the bigger they are the easier the target for the chasseurs

Anyone seen any figures for people shot by the hunters this year? There is usually a tally somewhere.

The Chasse Federation publish the figures going by the chasse calendar, so figures available for 2022/3 but not yet published for 2023/4 because the season's not finished yet.

Quite a few years ago, we had a friend's young horses in our top field, all nicely fenced with tape and posts. I heard a kerfuffle one morning after it had snowed, so went up to see what's occurring. The horses had taken fright of something and bolted through the fencing, taking the tape and posts with them, but luckily stopped before they went through a second section. I looked up to the ridge behind wondering what the heck had spooked them so much, and for a nano-second my eyes told my brain there was a big, brown bear running along said ridge. Brain clicked in and said "not a bear, dimwit, a boar". It was massive, fearsome and running in the opposite direction - so the horses' reaction had equally spooked it into fleeing.

They've been huge for some time!

The big male that the battue dispatched in next door's field posed them something of a problem as there were only three hunters to try to carry it 500m across the field to the waiting van. It took them 2 hours