• For several months, videos of wild boars taking a short walk in the neighborhoods of Montpellier abound on social networks.
  • For Laurent Jaoul (no label), mayor of Saint-Brès, it is the fault of the decision to ban hunting on the communal territories of Montpellier.
  • For Max Alliès, the president of the Federation of hunters of the Hérault, wild boars are getting closer and closer to the cities because they find something to drink, to eat, something to hide, and that they are safe from gunshots.

On February 17, the prefecture of Hérault closed the A750 motorway for a good two hours near Montpellier. Due to the presence of a horde of wild boars on the tracks. If this is the first time that these animals cause such a mess, crossing them no longer surprises anyone in the metropolis. For several months, videos of wild boars taking a short walk in town abound on social networks.

"It's proliferating, that's for sure!" says a resident of the Martelle district of Montpellier, whose garden has been visited several times by wild boars in recent years. "Since then, I've reinforced my fences," he continues. But all my neighbors see it. And we see traces everywhere. I live very close to the future Agriparc des Bouisses, which is really invaded by wild boars. We see them at night when we drive. Last season, no less than 800 wild boars were taken by hunters in the city. At the Lunaret zoo, recently, several dozen were captured.



"They are hunted everywhere, except in Montpellier!"

Wild boars in Montpellier is nothing new. But, for Laurent Jaoul (no label), the mayor of Saint-Brès, a village in the metropolis, there is no doubt: this recent proliferation, likely in particular to cause road accidents, is the consequence of the termination of agreements that allowed associations to hunt on communal land, in the city center. That was in the winter of 2021.

"When Coralie Mantion [the EELV vice-president of the Montpellier metropolis in charge of this file] made this decision, I was the first to denounce it, scolds Laurent Jaoul. And what was supposed to happen, happened. Today we have a very significant overpopulation of wild boars in the metropolis, especially in Montpellier. They are hunted everywhere except here. I would do like them if I were in their place! I will take refuge in Montpellier. There is only one solution to stem this phenomenon, "the metropolis must repeal this decree, which has no place to be! ", confides the elected official.


This morning, this family of #sangliers broke the highway code in #Grabels north of #Montpellier 🐗 pic.twitter.com/DCDnakNmAu

— InfOccitanie (@OccInfos) September 8, 2022

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"It's not unifactorial, it's multifactorial"

The services of the city, solicited by 20 Minutes, refute this analysis. The town hall indicates that the wild boar was not hunted on the sectors where shooting is now prohibited. The profusion of wild pigs in Montpellier, "it's not unifactorial, it's multifactorial," confides, for his part, Vincent Tarbouriech, the head of service of the French Office of Biodiversity (OFB) in the Hérault. "It's not a political decision [alone] that caused the presence of wild boars to explode." All the more, he notes, that "there are no structured hunting societies in Montpellier".

But then, why are there so many wild boars in the area? "With the decline of pastoralism, changes in the biotope, etc., the brush arrives at the edge of cities," explains Max Alliès, president of the Federation of hunters of the Hérault. And wild boars, it suits them perfectly. What they need is food, drink and hide. Global warming also has something to do with it. "In the past, when the female had five young, with the cold and lack of food, there were often three or four who died," explains the hunter. Today, almost all of them survive. In addition, reproduction has increased. »

A scourge inherent in "all major cities"

And above all, if this species, whose ability to adapt is exceptional, abounds in the city, it is "because we, hunters, do not go there, of course," continues Max Alliès. "They don't have the pressure that is put on them elsewhere." This problem, notes the boss of hunters, exists "in all major cities in Europe".

According to Max Alliès, soon hunters will organize an operation to push urban wild boars to uninhabited areas, where they can be captured. In addition, the hunters of the Hérault and the CNRS are starting a study to understand, by following them thanks to GPS chips, where wild boars like to take refuge around Montpellier. "It will allow us, for example, to say to the town hall 'Be careful, this wasteland is a 4-star hotel for wild boars!'" says Max Alliès.

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