“She’s over the moon!” Thierry Guégan and his dog were impatiently awaiting the opening of the hunt. “All the material has already been prepared for a weekhe explains with a smile. The ammunition is ready and the outfit too. Even the dog is excited because when the dogs see the gun, they know it.”
>> The article to read to understand the exceptional drought that is hitting mainland France
But because of the drought that has raged this summer in several regions of France, the dogs have more difficulty doing their job, due to lack of humidity, explains Bruno Meunier, president of the departmental federation of hunters in Charente.
“The pointer brings up the fumes from the game. It’s true that with such a drought as there is right now, there won’t be any fumes. That means the dog will be able to pass maybe 20 meters next to game and he’s not going to find anything.”
Bruno Meunier, president of the departmental federation of hunters in Charenteat franceinfo
“With ideal conditions, he would have felt it, he would have stopped him and there he will pass, and then he will find nothing: so much the better for the game and so much the worse for the hunter!”, ironically Bruno Meunier. Another difficulty arises for hunters: early harvests due to high summer temperatures. “On bare land, we’re a little lucky to have game and even if we find one, as soon as it’s going to do? It’s going to fly off towards the corn, where we has no right to hunthe explains. So a degraded territory, so not very favorable to hunting, but all for the happiness of the game.”
Despite the drought, game is present in numbers this year, according to the Vars hunting society, which also oversees its reproduction. “We do scouting and counting in order to locate where they are the most, where they are the mostexplains Thierry Guégan. We put feeders and water troughs.” The device is composed “of a bucket with a little spring” : “as they peck, the wheat will come down”, he develops. This year, with the drought, the feeders and water troughs were a little fuller, “a good third more”according to the hunter.
Local environmental associations, such as Charente Nature, affiliated with France Nature Environment, nevertheless want to set up consultations to think about reducing the duration of the hunting season and reducing the number of species that can be harvested, in the context of the climate crisis “in which we find ourselves”. Because the drought has nevertheless affected certain species. In Vars, the opening of the hunt will take place without the quails which, for lack of rain and vegetation, have not been able to feed and reproduce sufficiently.