Funding for hunting: the Court of Auditors goes in the direction of Morgan Keane’s friends

Their doubts are not removed. But the Court of Auditors’ report has the merit of relieving them. The financial jurisdiction responsible for monitoring state accounts published its report on the financing of hunting in France on July 13. A publication following the request of Morgan Keane’s friends. The Lotoises of the collective One day a hunter had proposed this idea of ​​complaint on May 20, 2022, on the citizen platform of the Court of Auditors: “Public money intended for hunting federations and its use”. Why childhood friends of Morgan Keane, killed by a hunter in Calvignac on December 2, 2020, are asking questions: ” We have looked in vain for a summary, a sequel, a file listing the funding allocated by the communities, be they local, departmental, regional and national, to hunting federations”. Of the 330 relationship ideas, only six were selected, including that of the Lotoises.

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Lotto: at the request of Morgan Keane’s friends, the Court of Auditors will produce a report on the financing of the hunt

In July, the Court of Auditors published the results of a year of research. “We are not surprised by the result, what we were aiming for emerges: an opacity on the money distributed to hunting federations and on the use of this money”, explains Milla Sanchez, of the collective Un jour un chasseur. Indeed, the report indicates that “the federations do not sufficiently comply with their reporting obligations, defined by law (publication of their annual statutory documents: moral report, accounts, auditors’ report and minutes of general meetings)”. This is exactly what the collective Un jour un chasseur underlined: “We also learn that the French Biodiversity Office cannot carry out all its wildlife protection and management missions due to lack of access to data.”

Another regional report in the fall

The paper points out that ‘most huntable species are not subject to quotas. The implementation of adaptive management has run into a lack of consensus, the scientists consulted particularly noting a lack of data.’ According to the Court, it is impossible to measure “the level of control of big game populations” while the funding paid to departmental federations is increasing: last March, the State promised 60 million euros over three years.

For Milla Sanchez, the remark remains, like an admission of failure. “Due to lack of transparency, we don’t know if the objectives quantified in terms of fighters have been achieved, and in which missions public funding is injected, the veil has not lifted, we are still at the starting point”. The Court of Auditors goes even further writing that “the State has not equipped itself with the means to control the correct exercise of these missions (…) The Government must also propose to Parliament to review the regulatory framework relating to departmental hunting management plans to avoid situations of absence of rules regulating the exercise of hunting, especially in terms of safety”. This report will be supplemented in the autumn by other publications produced this time by the regional accounts chambers with local data. Morgan Keane’s friends didn’t expect so much. Meanwhile, he continues to reflect on other means of regulating game “which would cost less to the State and would be more effective, such as the sterilization of wild boars and the establishment of permanent fences around crops”.