Rural Societies and Hunting Nuisance Animals in Haute-Provence
Alleau, Julien
Rural Societies and Hunting Nuisance Animals in Haute-Provence - 2010.
79
Provence during the early modern era was exceptional in its wolf control policy. From the beginning of the 17th century onward, the local population was enlisted to implement a policy of eradication instigated at the provincial level. The bounties granted to anyone who killed a wolf dwarfed other, more traditional means of wolf hunting such as battues or calling in professional wolf hunters. These bounties also provided historians with rich material consisting of a corpus of 2,740 grants for the killing of 1,115 adult wolves and 4,582 young wolves throughout the Haute-Provence region from 1632 to the French Revolution. These bounties bore witness to a sustained eradication effort maintained over the long run and were patterned upon economic activities that favored greater spatial proximity between humans and animals. The importance of this unending struggle reflected the widespread local presence of wolves and depended not only on random encounters but also on in-depth knowledge of the local territory.
Rural Societies and Hunting Nuisance Animals in Haute-Provence - 2010.
79
Provence during the early modern era was exceptional in its wolf control policy. From the beginning of the 17th century onward, the local population was enlisted to implement a policy of eradication instigated at the provincial level. The bounties granted to anyone who killed a wolf dwarfed other, more traditional means of wolf hunting such as battues or calling in professional wolf hunters. These bounties also provided historians with rich material consisting of a corpus of 2,740 grants for the killing of 1,115 adult wolves and 4,582 young wolves throughout the Haute-Provence region from 1632 to the French Revolution. These bounties bore witness to a sustained eradication effort maintained over the long run and were patterned upon economic activities that favored greater spatial proximity between humans and animals. The importance of this unending struggle reflected the widespread local presence of wolves and depended not only on random encounters but also on in-depth knowledge of the local territory.
Réseaux sociaux