The annual meeting of hunting stakeholders and scientific partners from the Camargue (the Tour du Valat and the Migratory Avifauna Unit of the French National Hunting and Wildlife Office—ONCFS [1]) w as held on Thursday 21 March, 2019 at the Tour du Valat, and brought together 60 participants.
This annual meeting aims to foster exchanges between the participants from these two worlds around hunting questions in the Camargue, in general, and more specifically, those related to the management of waterbird populations.
The 2019 edition was the occasion to:
- Present the results of the aerial waterbird counts coordinated every winter by the ONCFS,
- Take stock of the sanitary situation in the Camargue (particularly the avian flu),
- Present the RESSOURCE project for Sahelian Africa (by the AEWA’s African Initiative Technical Support Unit [2]),
- Make an overview of the current situation of the management programme for invasive alien species in the Camargue,
- Present the findings of a genetic study on the geographical origins of wintering geese in the Camargue.
David Valecillo, a doctoral student whose research has been co-supervised by the Tour du Valat and the ONCFS since the autumn of 2018, presented the project Waterbird censuses, management and sustainable hunting. Funded by the François Sommer Foundation [3], this project brings together 11 partners involved in censuses in the Camargue, and also provides financial support for the doctoral thesis that David will be defending in 2021, in addition to other activities.