Walloon hunters shot 20,528 wild boars in the 2022-2023 shooting season, 81% of the target set, Wallonia's minister in charge of hunting, Willy Borsus, said on Friday.
The 2023-2024 hunting season kicked off on Sunday and, Borsus insists, "the new targets must not only be achieved but exceeded.”
The decline in wild boar populations in some areas after the large culls since 2019, a warm, sunny October that kept the animals in the woods and a very late leaf fall that made it difficult to see the animals explain why the 2022-2023 targets were not achieved, the minister explained.
For the coming season, the voluntary shooting plan has been set at 23,481 wild boar, he added, pointing to the introduction of the new ChasseOnWeb platform that allows hunting right holders to fill in the various forms online, including the declaration of takings.
“Since 2019, voluntary wild boar shooting plans have enabled us to combat the expansion of the wild boar and to shoot 91,915 of them, but I note that there are still far too many," the minister said.
He added that he had submitted two texts to the government concerning new provisions for the destruction of wild boars and the revision of feeding regulations.
“All these measures added together should help to improve the situation significantly,” the minister concluded.
