An approach to the statistics of wild lagomorph captive rearing for releasing purposes in Spain

Abstract

Despite the importance of rearing wild lagomorphs in captivity for hunting and predator conservation in Spain, little is known about this production sector. Taking official data into account, in this work the number and distribution of farms in Spain and the possible number of animals produced were analysed during the period 2005-2010. In 2010, 114 wild rabbit farms were widely distributed throughout the country (especially Cataluña, Galicia, Andalucía and Castilla La Mancha regions), while 21 hare farms were registered, the majority in Extremadura, Castilla La Mancha and Andalucía. A possible production figure of 225 000-265 000 rabbits and 1 034 hares was estimated in 2010. Game farms of wild lagomorphs are established in Spain and placement would be related to a high demand for hunting and predator conservation in certain regions. Although more research is needed, the number of animals produced would be an important part of the total animals released to the wild.

Characterisation of wild rabbit commercial game farms in Spain

“…The average number of bucks in the breeding stock was 64.2 (Table 2). Although the official statistics are inaccurate and highly variable, the average number of does and bucks in the breeding stock agrees with the census in game farms for the period 2009-2010(Sánchez-García et al, 2012. The average doe-to-buck ratio was in the same range as that of meat rabbits submitted to intensive or semiintensive rhythms using natural mating (doe-to-buck ratio of 7-8; Lebas et al, 1996).…”

“…All the farmers found were contacted and invited to participate in the study voluntarily. The sample used consisted of 21 farms, located in 7 regions (Table 1) whose stratified distribution was representative of the current regional distribution of the wild rabbit game farms in Spain (Sánchez-García et al, 2012;Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente, 2013). The sample amounted to 10.2% of the 206 registered Spanish farms raising wild rabbits when the survey was conducted (Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente, 2013).…”

Una propuesta para considerar aspectos sanitarios en la regulación cinegética

“…Por ejemplo, casi 1 300 000 perdices de granja se liberan legalmente sólo en la provincia de Ciudad Real cada año (periodo 2009-2011) (Caro et al 2012). En cuanto a los lagomorfos, se estima que existen en España unas 114 granjas cinegéticas de conejo de monte que producen cada año entre 225 000 y 265 000 conejos para repoblación (Sánchez-García et al 2012). …”

Performance and mortality of farmed hares

“…low number of pairs) and results may vary greatly (Romboli et al, 1984;Spagnesi and Trocchi, 1992). As a consequence, knowledge about productive performance and, more importantly, diseases of farmed hares is lacking (Trocchi and Riga, 2005;Sánchez-García et al, 2012). In contrast, a number of studies are available on free-living European brown hares in Italy and in Europe (Strauß et al, 2008;Ferretti et al, 2010); these mainly focus on local wild populations or farmed hares released into the wild.…”