The hunting of the woodcock and its future.
The 30th! Fantasy or reality!
Since 2011, the Maximum Authorized Harvest (PMA) for Woodcock has been set at the National level at 30 per season.
Often mentioned rarely proven, some of us know or have heard of the hunter who each season " completed " the notebook.
I wanted to know more to try to solve the Fantasy / Reality equation.
The woodcock hunter hunts most often alone, sometimes in pairs, beyond it is another hunt .... Today by hunting with good dogs and without " accessories »He can only shoot at their stop on average over a season 51% * of the Woodcock raised.
Knowing that an excellent shooter takes on average 80% of the shots (rarely more) and an average shooter 35%, I produced a table which shows according to the skill of each one, how many Woodcock must be lifted in a season to reach the " 30 ".
* 51% is the average I have achieved over the last decade. Amplitude 45 to 55%. Each hunter can put the percentage he achieved thanks to his notes and observations.
This table shows that for the vast majority of woodcock hunters, the number of different birds that must be collected over a season in order to be able to collect Trente is inaccessible.
This observation is confirmed by the results of the estimate of the samples taken from the four Breton departments * (PMA Brittany report 2009/2010 season) and the five from Aquitaine ** (Bécasse des Bois sample 2011/2012) .
Of the 300,000 hunters who take one Woodcock and more (ONCFS survey on the 1998/1999 removals ***) ; in Brittany where the return of the notebooks is 87%, and for Aquitaine 37.5%, less than 1% of them take 30 (0.3 to 0.8%).
Even considering that the declarations of the 30 withdrawals are probably underestimated, in the absence of a more recent survey, the " 30 »For France is certainly reached today only by 1500 to 2500 hunters maximum according to the seasons !
In reality for all the others (298,000) the " 30 »Is and will remain a fantasy !
Assuming (realistic assumption) that these 1,500 to 2,500 hunters have on average the potential to harvest 40, the number of Woodcock spared thanks to PMA 30 would be between 15,000 and 25,000 per season, barely 3% of the estimated 2013 harvest / 2014 (Faune Sauvage n ° 310 October 2016).
We can (by the way) ask the question. The PMA National 30 season is it still adapted to limit the withdrawals ?
Philippe Vignac
October 2017
Sources :
* PMA Bretagne 2009/2010 season review, Yves Ferrand ONCFS, Studies and Research Department, CNERA Avifaune Migratrice, March 2011.
** Regional Federation of Aquitaine hunters. Estimation of woodcock removals 2011/2012, for the five departments of Aquitaine, François Mimiague November 2012.
*** Faune Sauvage n ° 251: August-September 2000, La Bécasse des Bois, Yves Ferrand, François Gossmann, research and development department CNERA avifaune Migratrice ;