10 September 2012

La Chasse aux renards

Yesterday was a reminder of what is to come: hunting season. From the end of September until the end of January, we see and hear hunters out in the vineyard every Sunday from 9:00 a.m. until late afternoon. They're a restriction on our walking schedule. But hunting is an important part of the culture of the Sologne and the Loire Valley.


The season hasn't yet opened, but hunting has started. Saturday morning, Walt came in from his walk with the dog and said there was an organized hunt — une battue — under way in the woods along the edge of the vineyard about a kilometer from our house. He said he could hear hunting horns, sporadic gunshots, and the baying, moaning, and howling of a pack of dogs.


Then yesterday, just I was preparing to go out for a walk around 8:00 a.m., we started hearing gunshots again. I threw open a window, and I could hear the dogs and the horns too. The noise seemed to be coming from the same place, half a mile from the house, so Callie and I headed around the other side of the house, to walk through the parcels of grapevines down there instead of going out into the main part of the vineyard.


Soon the hunt moved into our hamlet, La Renaudière. Some of the hunters and a pack of dogs went into the woods down where Callie and I had walked a few minutes earlier. The hunters were blowing their horns and the dogs were raising quite a ruckus. I think the goal was to chase animals out of the woods and up into the vines, where other hunters waited, guns at the ready.


By about 10:00 a.m., a couple of white vans had pulled up and parked just behind our back hedge. Hunters (men and women) got out and let a pack of hounds out too. They opened the fence that encloses the pond out back and let the dogs jump in and swim. They were the kind of dogs you see at the Château de Cheverny. I opened an upstairs window and took the pictures in this post.


Walt went out to the back gate to see what the story was. He talked to the man with the gun that you see in the photo above and found out that the animals being hunted were foxes, not deer. The hunter said they had killed three foxes that morning, and they had seen three or four more. « Il y en a beaucoup », he said — "there are a lot of them." I wonder how many they had bagged the day before, if any.


We've seen foxes out on the vineyard road a few times over the years, along with a lot of deer, many hares or rabbits, and the occasional badger. Over the past few weeks, I've been noticing animal droppings full of grape skins out in the rows of vines. I thought it might be deer eating the grapes, because they weather has been so dry and they might need the moisture. But maybe it's foxes. They eat grapes, don't they? Aesop and La Fontaine said so in their fables.

19 comments:

  1. I am always worried about walking Lulu near to woods in the hunting season - worried that she might be attacked by the dogs. I have heard of that happening.

    I have mixed feelings about the hunt. Killing for pleasure, even if justified for managing animal populations or food, seems somehow wrong. But then maybe I'm just a hypocrite as I enjoy eating meat.

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  2. Great pictures of the preliminaries to the action. We encountered a hunt the other day too, so I expect that was also for foxes. Your main hunting season starts a fortnight after ours for some reason, btw. My impression is that most mammals have had a good year and numbers are high, so I imagine many hunts will apply for extra days outside the main season.

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  3. Jean, I'm sure there is pleasure involved, but mainly the hunt is to control populations of animals that are considered to be pests on some level. I just read an article about the situation in the American West, where big animals including bears have begun invading towns and even breaking into people houses to forage in the kitchen and pantry. The drought out there has stressed animal populations severely.

    Susan, this was the aftermath of the hunt. The dogs were getting a dip in the pond before being put in the vans to driven home. I didn't find out if the dogs and hunters came from Cheverny, but I wonder... I don't know who exactly sets the dates for beginning and ending the hunting season.

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  4. Actually, Susan, I think I've heard that hunters are not allowed to fire guns in the vineyard until after the grapes have been harvested. They might damage the bunches. Maybe that's why our hunting season starts later than in the Sud-Touraine.

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  5. I think nuisibles like foxes can be shot at any time in our area, there isn't a season for them. Anyone with chickens will cheer the hunters on.

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  6. It's very wise of you to stay clear of the woods and the vineyards when the fox (and other) hunters are out. Not only for your own safety but also Callie's. She could very well be mistaken for a fox. She has the same colouring and agility after all. Luckily the hunt is limited to Sundays, so you don't have to change your daily routine during the rest of the week. Be careful though when you're out there ... Martine

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  7. Holy cow, that just feels so unsafe for residents. Shouldn't there have to be a notification to residents when this kind of thing is going to happen in a residential area? What if you had been out there? Grrr! I guess I do understand the need for some kind of organized hunting of animals that are "pests"... but in an area where there could clearly be nearby residents out strolling or walking pets, without notification?

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  8. Hello guys, my name is Roz and I live in France with my Husband John, just came across your blog and found it interesting as we live in St Aignan Sur Roe in Pays de la loire so we have something in common also I love gardening and growing veg, I was looking for something that would tell me what the tall collard type veg are I see in french gardens, they are top heavy with leaves but just a stalk that looks like it should have sprouts on it, if you know what they are let me know...nice to have found you.

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  9. While we usually visit France in the Spring, we've occasionally come in the Fall when there is hunting. In some areas we've stayed it seems like there were specific hunting days of the week, which everybody knew about, so you could plan your walks around it.

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  10. Those dogs are very beautiful and look as if they belong to a chateau. I can picture them followed by fox hunters on horseback.

    I think your hunts are on Sundays only. Here in Alabama we often hear shots when walking our granddog in the national forests nearby. We wear bright shirts and hope they don't hit us or the dog.

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  11. Just be glad Dick Cheney doesn't come to your area of the Loire Valley to go hunting.

    Seriously though, this is a great post about day to day life in France.

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  12. Ken: Swimming after the hunt - that makes sense. The departmental hunt associations set the dates and it is co-ordinated and published by the Féderation des Chasseurs. Tim is right that you can hunt nuisibles all year, but you still have to apply for permission for each hunt from the Féderation. You are not allowed to discharge a firearm within 150m of any building (including vine huts, garden sheds and caravans) but I've never heard the rule about grapes. Your hunting season starts on 30 Sept and they will still be harvesting then, so I am not sure it makes sense. Also, Indre et Loire has just as many ha of grapes, but their season starts on 16 Sept. The hounds would have had a V clipped into their sides if they had been from Cheverny. They look to me as if they are from a smaller hunting pack and identified by the colour of their collars, but I could be wrong.

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  13. The order setting hunting dates seems to come from the Préfet in Blois for the Loir-et-Cher. Dates are different from commune (township) to commune and depending on the animal being hunted, as specified in the "decree." I saw a date earlier than Sept. 30 for the start of hunting in the Loir-et-Cher.

    The prefect's letter specifies rules for fox hunting, including dates, so I'm not sure how that works.

    The 150 meter rule is not really honored; we often have hunters firing guns not more than 30 meters from our house, and that was probably the case yesterday morning.

    The rule about not firing guns in the vineyard before harvest doesn't apply when there are battues, judging from yesterday's hunt, just when it's individual hunters on Sundays during the season.

    Judy, we didn't get any advance notice of the hunt, or if we did it went right by us. The only way we would be notified would be in a newsletter from the mayor, but neither of us saw anything in the newsletter we got in late August.

    We were careful to keep Callie in the house when the hunters and their pack of dogs were close by. Bertie the black cat fended for himself. It's true that I didn't see any V "brands" on the dogs, and we didn't ask anybody where they came from.

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  14. Ken: interesting that dates differ from commune to commune where you are. They do indeed differ depending on the animal hunted, with some things having very short seasons and others slightly longer. Then you have the out of season hunts too. You are right that the arrete comes from the Prefect, but it is a formality, based on the advice of the Federation de chasseurs. The main season, for most species, starts 30 Sept, according to the Federation's website (from memory - I haven't gone back to check...) I'm not surprised to hear the 150m rule is broken - I suspected as much.

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  15. PS Arret, not arrete (and can't do accents on the laptop).

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  16. The arrêté prefectoral from Blois specifies that for most game animals the hunting season opens Sept. 23 in the Loir-et-Cher. For faisans communs and hares, it starts on Oct. 14.

    In Mareuil and the Saint-Aignan area in general, the partridge season opens only for the first 11 days in November, but in most of the rest of the department it runs from Sept. 23 until Jan. 31. Well, with the exception of the Montrichard area and in Mareuil north of the A85 autoroute, where there is a fermeture générale in effect.

    The prefect's document is very detailed and quite complex. For foxes, the hunting season for the whole Loir-et-Cher department opened June 1 and will close next Feb. 28. But before Sept. 23, hunters must have a special authorization to hunt foxes.

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  17. Hello Roz and John in the other Saint-Aignan, you know, I've seen those tall cabbage plants on long stems with a bunch of leaves on top, and I think they must be Brussels sprouts. But I really don't know that for sure. Someday we'll have to come visit your Saint-Aignan. If you come over to see ours, let us know. Ken

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  18. Hello Ken, thank so much for your reply, they are definately not sprouts I have bought some small plants that look like them and I will see what they turn into (they were just called Chou) I have just looked on the map and you are quite a ways off from us but who knows, one day. take a look at our blog which I have only just started again, I don't know how to give you a link to it (if you know please tell me) so just look for "Our life in St Aignan sur roe
    and follow us

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