Skip to main content

Hunting. Captures. By species. Provinces

Hunting. Captures. By species. Provinces 2011
Barcelona Girona Lleida Tarragona Catalonia
Small game
Duck 1,493 3,616 1,399 10,083 16,591
Woodcock 3,048 2,788 1,104 1,362 8,302
Snipe 87 813 336 3,095 4,331
Pigeon 1,126 2,114 10,219 5,229 18,688
Rabbit 22,121 14,338 90,711 83,049 210,219
Starling 5,496 13,077 15,234 32,119 65,926
Pheasant 10,208 10,502 2,079 194 22,983
Coot 34 83 72 3,176 3,365
Lapwing 208 678 184 182 1,252
Magpie 4,105 1,237 12,317 6,682 24,341
Yellow-legged gull 0 0 0 295 295
Black-headed gull 0 0 0 195 195
Common quail 972 4,573 23,751 1,070 30,366
Red fox 1,214 970 2,192 1,618 5,994
Hare 1,160 1,415 4,694 2,267 9,536
Red-legged partridge 26,570 14,052 43,568 26,226 110,416
Grey partridge 5 63 258 0 326
Thrush 23,776 38,161 137,287 608,199 807,423
Turtle dove 1,207 7,894 11,873 6,109 27,083
Wood pigeon 19,245 15,790 23,310 31,292 89,637
Garganey 0 0 0 0 0
Teal 40 190 73 2,504 2,807
Pochard 0 2 6 460 468
Xixella 147 391 951 450 1,939
Big game
Roe deer 264 325 552 70 1,211
Wild goat 72 0 0 286 358
Deer 242 216 809 4 1,271
Fallow deer 3 305 214 20 542
Chamois 6 250 155 0 411
Couflon 0 301 91 0 392
Wild boar 6,738 11,253 6,964 4,741 29,696
Source: Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, Food and Natural Environment.
Note: The hunting season begins at the in early October and ends in late February.

Last update: April 20, 2012.

Methodological note

Definition of concepts

Big game
Large animals, with low annual mortality and high life expectancy. In order to reduce the inevitable competence for growth, these species have a low reproduction rate. The margin for hunting them is lower, as these species do not have a natural capacity to recover their original values prior to each year's hunting season.
Small game
Small animals. Their populations typically have high reproduction rates that also enable them to have high breeding rates. They are some of the species considered to be prey, subjected to predators. Therefore, they can actively respond to severe reductions in number.

Methodological aspects

Hunting is a sport or recreational activity, therefore in order to do it, several aspects must be taken into account, such as the procedures to obtain licences and permits, the places where hunting is permitted, the time of the year it can be done, game species, etc. There is a also a Strategic Plan which aims to define a hunting model that is sustainable within nature and compatible with other territorial activities.

The small all the hunting species of birds and four mammal species: rabbit, European hare, Iberian hare and fox. Due to its abundance and general distribution in all the territory, it is the most common and popular hunting. The number of catches at the end of the season is higher as well, though the regeneration capacity in certain parameters allows the recovery of populations.

In our country, all the big game species belong to the ungulates group, which includes deer (Cervus elaphus), fallow (Dama dama), roe deer (Capreolus sp), chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra), wild goat (Capra hispanica), wild boar (Sus scrofa) and mouflon (Ovis musimon). Though a wrong management and insufficient conservation made that many of these species disappear at their natural distribution areas, nowadays are model for habitats recovery and right management done in many years of work.

The captures shown in this table are those carried out in private and local hunting areas, controlled hunting areas and national reserves during the hunting season. The season is approved by means of an annual resolution which establishes which species may be hunted, the stipulated hunting periods and the special closures for each season.

Unavailable information is represented using the symbol ":". When the value is lower than that of the minimum unit to be able to estimate the statistical operation or if it effects statistical confidentiality, the symbol used is "..".