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FranceJustice has ruled, Maurice the wild boar can stay with his foster family
Collected injured in 2014 by a couple in Corrèze, the animal had been threatened with administrative euthanasia for two years. The affair had aroused a wave of emotion in France.
William Vayne, the owner of “Maurice”, took in the animal when it was still very young. From now on, the wild boar is domesticated.
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“Maurice”, a wild boar collected injured in 2014 by a couple from Montaignac-sur-Doustre, in Corrèze (central France), and threatened with administrative euthanasia for two years, was finally authorized by the courts to remain in his host family. The animal, a now domesticated male who lives in a protected enclosure in the company of goats, chickens and geese, will therefore not be withdrawn from its hosts.
Tuesday before the Correctional Court of Tulle, the owner of the animal, William Vayne, appeared for “taking without authorization from the natural environment of live animals whose hunting is authorized” and “unauthorized detention of animal species non-domestic”. He was found guilty of having kept the mammal at home, now domesticated, but exempted from punishment because of the regularization of the animal, carried out with the prefecture a few months ago.
Anonymous whistleblower
The case began in March 2019 following an anonymous denunciation to the services of the French Office for Biodiversity, following which William Vayne asked the prefecture for authorization to detain the animal. It had been refused to him “because of the illegal origin of the wild boar”.
“We treated him, I tried to get him to leave followingwards but he always came back. So we kept it”, explained to the audience the thirty-year-old who had also tried in vain to find an authorized refuge. “I hope that Maurice will stay at home to continue living happy days,” he added at the helm.
When the Brigitte Bardot Foundation gets involved
“We cannot say that it is a protected and huntable species at the same time, which poses a first problem for the offense of detention; the sample is assimilated to a capture, but the animal arrived at their home, ”underlined the defendant’s lawyer, Me Patrice Grillon. The couple had launched an online petition, “Save Maurice”, which collected more than 218,000 signatures, as well as a kitty to contribute to legal costs.
The Brigitte Bardot Foundation, which was moved by the animal’s fate with the prefecture, welcomed the court’s decision on Wednesday. “This animal rescued injured when it was only a few weeks old was treated and placed in a suitable environment. How would killing him today have been a solution, rather than leaving him alive under the protection of his benefactors?” commented his spokesperson, Christophe Marie.
(AFP)