This February the hunting season ends in Spain. In fact, in most of the Autonomous Communities the season for many species has already closed or, at most, it will close at the end of the month except in very exceptional cases. The 2022-23 season has been ‘special’ for the 750,000 licensed hunters in our country. On the one hand, it was the first hunting season without any kind of restrictions after the pandemic and, on the other, the Animal Welfare Law, which was finally discovered in Congress on February 9 without hunting dogs being included in it, It threatened an activity that, according to a study by the Artemisan Foundation, generated 0.3% of Spain’s GDP and more than 185,000 jobs before the appearance of Covid-19. “And this autumn-winter we have almost recovered the figures for 2019,” say sources in the sector.
Antonio (38 years old), from Villanueva de Córdoba, in northern Andalusia, knows this well, an area where many people – the same happens in the neighboring communities of Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura – live from October to March hunting. It is not for nothing that we are talking about the so-called ‘golden mile’ of hunting in Spain. “Around here,” he explains, “in these months there are many hunts every weekend and I, and on many occasions my wife too, work in them and then, in spring and summer, we dedicate ourselves to the fields. If hunting disappears, what are many of the inhabitants of these towns going to eat? These years of pandemic, without hunting or with very restricted activity, we have had a hard time in winter,” he says. “In addition, this year he uses the fear of animal law, it seems that there is no longer any danger, right?” says Antonio.
“What do they know in an office in Madrid, in the capital, what happens in the countryside or what is good for us and gives us a living in the rural world!”, says this local from Sierra Morena, who is visibly angry. He assures that this season he has been able to get hunting, working in hunts, “about 1,700 euros and my wife about 1,000.” If you add to this that “we have also put some peonadas in the olives, some animal that I raise at home”, pigs and chickens, “the orchard that I have… Well, that’s how we live in the countryside”.
“A very good season”
“There was a great desire to hunt and the farms and spots that have been hunted were full of animals. It has been a very good season,” they say from the Monterías Riquelme company. But not only big game, the season has been splendid for hunting thrush, wood pigeon, quail… “We are almost at numbers from before the pandemic,” they insist.
Córdoba is one of the Spanish provinces with the highest hunting activity. There, the season has been “spectacular” in terms of species such as deer, fallow deer or mouflon, but, above all, as in most regions, the unstoppable expansion of wild boar stands out, to the point that as population management mode, hunting emergency, they call it, this species can be hunted until May 31. “The economic and environmental importance of hunting in the province of Córdoba has been highlighted”, they explain from ASAJA (Association of Young Farmers), “and the wealth and employment generated by hunting in rural areas and the large number of professionals who participate in them: veterinarians, butchers, rangers, bidders, rehaleros, muleteers, catering and restaurant companies…”, they detail.
And it is that as explained by the Artemisan Foundation, an organization in which the Royal Spanish Hunting Federation (RFEC) participates, “hunting is an important economic activity in rural areas, as well as fundamental for population control of various species Understood as a renewable resource, it is essential to reconcile the maintenance of hunting populations in their natural environment, the conservation of this environment and the profitable management of said resource”. Sometimes “it is a complement to other agricultural or forestry uses, although in many others it constitutes by itself the main land income in many regions, substituting other uses that have lost profitability.” And it is “essential for the rural environment, since it not only generates income for those regions, but also generates a significant number of direct and indirect jobs.” “Specifically, before Covid, hunting activity in Spain generated more than 6,475 million euros a year, and created 187,000 jobs.”
Thus, hunting is concentrated above all in Castilla la Mancha, Castilla y León, Andalusia and Extremadura. “It is in these provinces where it has the greatest socioeconomic impact. Its importance is not only in relation to recreational or tourism, but it is an important engine of business activity.” And it is that more than 80% of the national territory is a hunting ground and as they explain from the Sustainable Hunting Foundation “hunting is today, through hunting management actions, an activity with an enormous, positive impact on the natural environment sometimes if it is done properly and other times negative when it is not done properly. A sustainable hunting, based on sustainable use and hunting management, guarantees the conservation of the natural environment. In our time, comfortable with itself and socially accepted”.
The president of the RFEC, Manuel Gallardo, knows this well, who in recent months has carried out a frantic activity in defense of hunting in various forums, Congress, the Senate and even in Brussels, at the headquarters of the European Commission and the European Parliament. where he asked that the European institutions “do not legislate against hunting activity but that they work together with the 7 million European hunters. In favor of an activity that, only in Spain, generates almost 200,000 jobs and 6,500 million euros per year”.
