Abstract
In Spain, Game Reserves (GR) are territorial public hunting management units that cover 3.5% of the country and ~ 10% of the Natura 2000 Network. The first GR were established in 1966 and by 2011 there were 49. Their primary purposes were to promote wild ungulate populations, their sustainable use, and to provide social, economic, and recreational benefits to local communities and hunters, generally. During the 1980s following a political federalization process, GR became the responsibility of regional governments and their role has never been evaluated, even though the political, rural ecological, and administrative frameworks underwent substantial changes. In this paper, we present a review of the state of GR in 2011, identify their successes and problems, and provide recommendations for the future. The GR have been fundamental to sustainable hunting and the protection of wildlife, particularly, game species. Currently, their virtues are not widely appreciated and they do not receive sufficient financial and human resources to meet their objective fully. We propose several initiatives that might improve the use of existing resources and increase the profile of these publicly managed areas.
Highlights
Populations of wild ungulates in Europe have recovered during last decades (Apollonio et al, 2010)
We developed a problem tree based on the hierarchical organization of the causeeffect relationships among the various problems faced by each of the Game Reserves (GR) (Fig. 2), which formed the basis of an objective tree, that included operational objectives, intermediate results, and general objectives
The high proportion of questionnaires that were returned by the GR provided a sound basis upon which to assess the status of the GR in Spain
Summary
Populations of wild ungulates in Europe have recovered during last decades (Apollonio et al, 2010). In Spain, at the beginning of the 1960s there was a massive rural exodus from the country to the large industrial areas, and some territories that provided exceptional conditions for supporting game hunting were declared public hunting grounds; i.e., Game Reserves (GR), which were managed by the state government (Ortuño and de la Peña, 1976). They were designed to promote game hunting, control poaching, provide economic benefits to local communities, promote hunting tourism, and aid the recovery of wildlife populations, which has been successful in sub-Saharan Africa (Lindsey, 2007). Despite the importance of hunting in Spain, one of the countries with a higher hunting demand worldwide (Hofer, 2002), the importance of GR in nature conservation and the sustainable use of natural resources has not been thoroughly evaluated
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