ECOLOGY: Hunters facing climate change
Effects of more intense climatic events on the reproduction of small game, trends of milder winters favorable to the proliferation of wild boars, alteration of food resources, consequences on interactions between species … the Côte-d’Orient hunter Dominique Rigaud shares his experience of the year 2021.
Climatic disturbances in Burgundy? Dominique Rigaud sees “certain things”. He is vice-president of the departmental federation of hunters of Côte-d’Or, a federation acquired by Pascal Sécula (also at the head of the regional federation).
On the sidelines of the venison day of the Dijon International and Gastronomic Fair, which took place on November 5, 2021, Dominique Rigaud answered questions fromDijon Info on the perception of the effects of climate change by hunters in the Côte-d’Or.
“We ended up with very late quail in our territories”
Are hunters sensitive to climate change issues?
“It affects everyone, hunters and non-hunters. Now, seeing the change with us is not easy. In 2021, we found ourselves with very late quail in our territories ”.
“I don’t necessarily explain this by the fact of global warming. I explain rather by the fact of having heavy rains perhaps caused by climate change. (…) What is certain is that this climate has adversely affected reproduction on normal dates compared to what we know ”
“What we saw in small game is recoqueting, that is to say a first brood which did not succeed, with its torrential rains, and the animals do not like emptiness, they did a second reproduction. “
“There is a real impact, it is the rain that we had in the spring but from there to say that it is the climate which caused it …”
“There is no longer any significant mortality of young on the wild boar species”
You claim to be among the first ecologists, do you see the changes as we have seen in viticulture with the advance of harvest dates in particular?
“For us, the species on which we see the most impact of this pseudo-warming is the wild boar in particular. The wild boar is a relatively large breeding animal. We still realize that we have less coarse winters and during harsh winters with rain, snow, when we had a normal regulation of the reproduction of the wild boar, the small wild boar suffered from humidity and cold, which was killing a lot of those animals. “
“There, today, indeed, we see that there is no longer any significant mortality of young people on the wild boar species. (…) I think that for 10-15 years, we have noticed that the winters are less harsh but it is everywhere. The wild boar population increased in France, it increased in Europe, it increased in the world. So this is not something that only happens in Côte-d’Or. I know that some would like to confuse things by saying that it is agrainage, it is wrong. On the other hand, having winters less harsh, less cold, that does not eliminate animals naturally as it did before.
Are there other species affected by the effect of less harsh winters?
“It’s rather favorable to small game. What is supported for reproduction is precisely the rains that we experience in spring. The hare, for example. Or the warren, but the warren is so cyclical in its reproduction that you can have warrens for a year or two and then they catch the disease and they disappear, not entirely but almost.
“Everything that is birds nesting on the ground, it does immense damage. We no longer have the reproduction we could have. “
“We have the partridge, whether it’s red or gray, there is necessarily an impact everywhere. We have contacts by federation, by hunting friends, in particular departments which are still very well organized with this game – which is no longer really the case with us despite the efforts made by the hunters – they noticed that ‘there was a decline in reproduction this year. “
“On the game birds, wood pigeon, woodcock, snipe, ducks … we realize that there is a migration but which is perhaps less important than it was a time. The winters are less severe, they no longer feel the need to leave and certain species – this is not a generality either – are nesting more and more here. “
Monitoring of the proportion of young people in the populations sampled
What do hunters say from other latitudes, a little further north?
“The woodcock, I find it in the woods, at home, in Auxois, 60 km north-east of Dijon. We have woodcock which usually arrive from October 15-20. It is truly the bird of passage that we know. “
“We noticed that there were more woodcock much earlier, but these woodcock, we feel that they have remained sedentary, they have not migrated, they have not come down to Africa and they are not no lifts to nest in the Urals or in the eastern countries. That, in my opinion, is also the result of the torrential rains that we had, at home but also at home. “
“We pay close attention to this because – whatever our detractors may think – we pay close attention to the samples we take after the first samples. (…) For the hares, when they have been collected, the legs are harvested to pass X-rays to look at whether or not there is an impact on reproduction. If, in the legs, we have more than 60% of young that are harvested on the first Sunday, that means that we are in excellent reproduction. If we are at 50% or 45%, that means that there are not many young people. There, we say to the hunters ‘be careful, there is a risk, so you should not take as much as usual’. “
“We do the same with woodcock. True woodcock, each time we take a bird, we see if it is a young. (…) This is what we do in France. In African countries, there is no such regulation. In the eastern countries, unfortunately, they hunt it for a long time, there is not even a closure. We are just putting a small stone to the building, but we have to do it. “
“We, woodcock, we have very cold protocol, we do not wait for people to tell us that we have to close the woodcock. Woodcock feeds on worms, it can go a day or two without eating. When there are several days of very deep frost, there is a risk of weakening. We’re not going to shoot weak animals. We will close immediately. We must protect these animals. We will reopen when the lands are no longer frozen and they should feed normally to regain strength.
“The climate has no effect on big game”
Likewise, do you see on the predators that compete with the hunters, like the fox, a changing populations?
“It’s cyclical. We see that the fox, in some places, is increasing a lot. Regulation does not happen naturally. The link between the hare and the fox, we’ve been following that for decades. When you have a lot of foxes in a territory, you don’t have a lot of hares. When you don’t have a lot of foxes, you have a lot of hares. “
“These are animals that live very well in winter, they have fur. A bird remains a bird, the down does not increase. The fox does not suffer from the climate. “
What about deer?
“Not in relation to the climate. The example in Côte-d’Or is the fact that the agricultural world can no longer harvest rapeseed because of the flea beetle, this insect that destroys production. We realize that these animals, the deer – where they were concentrated because there was this food which was very palatable for them – will be rejected on other plants. The climate has no effect on big game. ”
“The reproduction of roe deer and large deer, reproduction does not take place in the middle of winter, whereas the wild boar comes out of winter, really early.”
“When there is a good year, there is a large reproduction of wild boars”
We are forecasting increasingly hot summers and wetter winters for Burgundy, do you think the flora and fauna can be resilient?
“When we look at this year, the humidity level that we had, you go into the forest, you don’t see any acorns, you don’t see beechnuts, you don’t see fruiting. It is surprising because, when there is a very hot summer, we realize that it is complicated, there is not enough water for the glands to grow. There, it has a real impact on the forests, it has a real impact on the animals [puisque c’est la nourriture de certaines espèces]. “
“People need to understand that we are hunters and, also, we think of our animals. In times of scarcity, we must also help them survive. Some will say that it is to kill them later, perhaps, but, in any case, today, hunting, that of small game for example, if there were no hunters, it there are game species which have totally disappeared from our territories. Today, if the hunters do not generate work on the pheasant, on the partridge, these are animals that we would no longer have in the countryside. “
“On the pleasure of hunting them but also on the pleasure of seeing them. When I go into the wild, when I see pheasants out of the hunt, I am very happy. Walkers and even farmers are happy to see small game. ”
“We know very well that when there is a good year in the woods, there is a large reproduction of wild boars and it is not the few kilos of corn which are put in the woods per week that cause the population to increase. (…) The large animals are forest animals, the fauna feeds on the glands and on the leaves of the trees. (…) There is an impact on the herds. ”
Employees of the Côte-d’Or hunters’ federation collect information from members to consider one-off events that could turn into lasting phenomena. Counts are also carried out to guide reproductive actions.
Proposals reported by Jean-Christophe Tardivon