Wild boar driven hunt: how to organise and run one

A wild boar driven hunt is a collective hunt in which beaters and their dogs push the animals towards a line of hunters on stands. At the outside it can run from 1 June to 31 May, under the rules of the departmental scheme. An administrative hunt is a different animal: the prefect or the mayor orders it, and a lieutenant de louveterie runs it.

Saturday evening, the day before the hunt. The society’s chairman counts the replies on his phone: twelve confirmed, two who will “see tomorrow”, and a guest whose licence nobody has checked. The stand map is in the secretary’s car. The federation’s logbook is somewhere in the hunting lodge.

That everyday muddle gets expensive the day a warden or a gendarme asks who was hunting, which stand they were on and under what instructions. It costs more again when the prefecture asks the society to take part in an administrative hunt, with its own rules and a louvetier running the show.

This guide answers the questions chairmen and hunt leaders ask at the start of the season: when you can hold a wild boar driven hunt, which rules apply everywhere and which come from the department, who orders an administrative hunt, and how to prepare the day step by step. Every rule points to its article of the Environmental Code (Code de l’environnement) or to the federation page that applies it.

When can you organise a wild boar driven hunt?

The prefect can authorise a wild boar driven hunt from 1 June until 31 May at the latest, according to the table in article R. 424-8 of the Environmental Code¹. These dates are limits. The prefectoral order for your department sets the actual dates.

The same article splits the year into three periods. From 1 June to 14 August, wild boar can only be taken on a driven hunt, from a hide or by stalking, and only once the prefect has authorised the holder of the hunting rights. Whoever holds that authorisation then sends the prefect a report of the animals taken, before 15 September¹. From 15 August to the general opening, and from the general closing to 31 March, a wild boar driven hunt is still possible on the terms of the prefectoral order¹. Between the general opening and closing, it comes back under the ordinary rules of the season.

That wide calendar tracks the harvest figures. The Fédération nationale des chasseurs (FNC, the national hunters’ federation) and the Office français de la biodiversité (OFB, the French biodiversity agency) counted 881,372 wild boar harvested in France in the 2024-2025 season, 2.1% up on the year before, and a harvest that has doubled in twenty years².

Wild boar are everywhere in France now, from the sea to the mountains.

Matthieu Salvaudon, head of the damage department at the FNC² (quoted here in translation)

To fit your wild boar driven hunt to your department’s dates, see our page on hunting opening and closing dates, then check the prefectoral order for the season.

Ordinary hunt, administrative hunt, exceptional hunt: what is the difference?

The difference is who decides. An ordinary driven hunt is run by the holder of the hunting rights, to hunt. An administrative hunt is a control operation ordered by the authorities, in the public interest, and led by a lieutenant de louveterie³.

The phrase “exceptional wild boar hunt”, which plenty of people type into Google, appears nowhere in the Environmental Code. In the press it usually means an administrative hunt, or a hunt held outside the usual calendar with the prefect’s authorisation. The table below sets out the four kinds of wild boar driven hunt you meet in the field.

The framework for the louveterie has just changed. As amended by law no. 2026-796 of 18 August 2026, article L. 427-1 describes lieutenants de louveterie as sworn volunteers and as “agents entrusted with a public-service policing mission”⁷ (translated from the French). Article L. 427-1-1, from the same law, hands the prefect a new tool. Through an order valid for three years at most, and open to public consultation, the prefect can set out the conditions, the areas and the arrangements for louvetier operations. Operations under that order are then published electronically, in a simplified form⁸.

For a hunting society that matters in practice. In departments that adopt such an order, the sectors where a louvetier can act are known three years ahead. Read it as soon as it appears: it tells you where an administrative hunt may land on your hunting ground, and where your members will be called out.

Administrative wild boar hunt: who decides it and how does it work?

The prefect orders an administrative wild boar hunt whenever one is needed, on one of the five grounds listed in article L. 427-6. Two of them bear directly on wild boar: heading off serious damage to crops, forests or other property, and protecting public health and safety³. The operation can take the form of hunts, general or particular driven hunts, or trapping, and it can target species under a harvest plan³.

The mayor has powers of their own. Hunts a mayor orders are run “under the control and technical responsibility of the lieutenants de louveterie”⁵ (translated). In communes close to large forests where wild boar regularly threaten crops, the prefect can also delegate those powers to mayors, with the same louvetier oversight⁶.

A lieutenant de louveterie is not just another hunter. The prefect appoints them for five years at most, and the post ends on their 75th birthday⁹. They must have held a hunting licence for at least five years and undertake to keep, at their own expense, at least four hounds for wild boar or fox, or two terriers for digging out¹⁰. The specialist press puts the number of louvetiers in France at around 1,800¹¹.

What does an administrative hunt look like in the field?

It looks like a big wild boar driven hunt, with a louvetier in command and public safety setting the limits. On Sunday 15 December 2024 in Dordogne, around 70 hunters from local societies joined an administrative hunt at Saint-Pierre-de-Frugie, led by Gérard Arvieux, lieutenant de louveterie. The N21 was closed, the drives ran from 10:00 to 17:30, and 15 wild boar and 7 deer were taken in a block of woodland that had never been hunted for safety reasons¹².

At Brive, on Saturday 26 September 2026, the Planchetorte golf course shut until 14:30 for an administrative hunt run under the local louvetier’s responsibility, after weeks of churned-up greens¹³.

In Maine-et-Loire, the louvetiers, the hunters’ federation and the FDSEA 49 (the departmental branch of the farmers’ union) met on 17 and 29 September 2026. All three say the same thing: louvetiers are called in too late, once the crop has already been turned over, which makes the job longer and less effective. The departmental federation wants farmers there on the day, even if they do not hunt, to pass on what they know about the plots and the crossing points¹¹.

Two things to hold on to if your society is called in to help. The louvetier is in command, and their instructions come before your society’s habits. And report damage on your hunting ground early, before the boar settle into a pattern.

Can a landowner kill wild boar on their own land?

No. Article L. 427-9 lets a landowner or tenant farmer drive off or destroy certain animals damaging their property, but it says they are “not authorised to destroy wild boar”¹⁴ (translated). A landowner with damage goes through the holder of the hunting rights, through the federation, or by asking for an administrative operation.

Which rules govern a wild boar driven hunt?

Three rules apply everywhere in France: a high-visibility vest for every hunter on a collective big game hunt, temporary warning signs on or near public roads, and a safety refresher every ten years¹⁵. The FNC notes that the order setting these out was published in the Journal officiel (France’s official gazette) of 5 October 2020¹⁶.

Everything else comes from the department. The departmental hunting management scheme (SDGC, schéma départemental de gestion cynégétique) has to include measures on the safety of hunters and non-hunters¹⁷, and it can go further than the national rules¹⁵. Ignoring its safety provisions carries the fine for class 4 offences¹⁸.

Look at what the Pyrénées-Atlantiques scheme asks for. The federation there counts a hunt as a driven hunt from 5 armed hunters upwards. The driven hunt logbook has to be filled in and signed by everyone taking part, on the federation’s own template. The hunt leader gives the safety instructions before the hunt, and the action starts and ends on a signal. Big game driven hunts are banned on hunting grounds under 100 hectares in one block, unless the prefect grants an exemption⁴.

One last rule, insurance, does not depend on the department. Every hunter must hold third-party liability cover for an unlimited sum, including for damage caused by their dogs¹⁹. Check the certificates at the morning safety briefing.

The driven hunt logbook is worth a word of its own. No national text requires it, but plenty of schemes do, and the Charente federation, for one, publishes its own for the 2026-2027 season²¹. Use your federation’s template, not the first PDF that comes up online.

How do you organise a wild boar driven hunt, step by step?

Four things have to be ready before the day: the list of who is coming, the stand map, the paperwork and the instructions. On the day itself, it all turns on the morning briefing and the evening harvest tally. This is the order well-run societies work in.

1. Check the framework. Reread the season’s prefectoral order and the safety chapter of the SDGC. For a driven hunt between 1 June and 14 August, ask the prefect for authorisation in good time¹.
2. Appoint the hunt leader. In Pyrénées-Atlantiques they give the instructions and the signal, and the federation publishes a template for delegating the chairman’s powers to a hunt leader: something in writing leaves no doubt on the day of an incident⁴.
3. Send the invitations. Date, place and time of the briefing, a week ahead. Ask for a firm answer, plus each guest’s licence number and insurance certificate.
4. Draw the stand map. Number the stands, mark the drives and the no-shoot angles, and show the roads and houses.
5. Get the paperwork ready. Print the federation’s logbook and an attendance sheet. Put the road signs in the car¹⁵.
6. Hold the morning briefing. Check licences, insurance and vests. Give the instructions, have the logbook signed if your scheme asks for it, then allocate the stands⁴.
7. Signal the start and the end. The hunting action starts and ends on the hunt leader’s signal⁴. Nobody leaves their stand before the drive is over.
8. Keep the harvest tally. Write down every animal taken, the shooter’s stand and the time. Those figures feed the logbook, the season report and, for a summer driven hunt, the report that goes to the prefect before 15 September¹.
9. Debrief afterwards. Take the signs down, finish the logbook, settle the day’s accounts and note what to change next time.

For what to do on the stand and in the drive, reread our driven hunt safety instructions, and go through them again at every briefing.

Steps 3, 4 and 8 eat the most volunteer time, and that is where a tool buys your evenings back. With Mes Chasses you can organise a wild boar driven hunt online: your guests confirm they are coming and send their licence from a link, with no account to create. If you prefer paper, our printable driven hunt sheet is free.

Conclusion

A well-run wild boar driven hunt rests on a handful of things: knowing the dates in the prefectoral order, applying the three national rules, following your department’s scheme, and appointing a hunt leader who gives the instructions and the signal. The rest is preparation, from the invitations to the evening harvest tally.

An administrative hunt works on a different logic. The prefect or the mayor orders it, and a lieutenant de louveterie leads it. Since the law of 18 August 2026, the prefect can publish a three-year order saying where and how louvetiers operate. If your department adopts one, read it: it tells your society which sectors it may be called out to.

Do three things this week, before your next driven hunt. Download your federation’s 2026-2027 logbook. Reread the safety chapter of your departmental scheme. Then put together the list of registered hunters and the stand map, on paper or with Mes Chasses, so Sunday’s briefing starts on time.

References