Erfurt (dpa/th) - Under difficult conditions caused by the corona pandemic, hunters in Thuringia shot slightly less game in the last hunting season than in the same period last year. With around 50,000 deer, mouflon and roe deer, the hunting distance between April 2021 and March 2022 was a good 2000 animals less than in the 2020/21 hunting season, as the Ministry of Agriculture announced on Friday in Erfurt. A little more than 35,000 wild boar shots were registered after a good 38,000 in the previous season. This also included 12,619 raccoons, 651 Egyptian geese and 277 raccoon dogs. That was more than in the 2020/21 hunting season.
With a view to the spread of African swine fever in wild boar in Brandenburg, Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the wild boar in Thuringia must continue to be hunted intensively in order to reduce the risk of outbreaks in the Free State as much as possible, it said. Hunting raccoons, raccoon dogs and Egyptian gooses makes an important contribution to maintaining the natural balance, as these threaten the local population of amphibians, breeding birds and waterfowl as predators and competitors for food.
