By AFP - Agence France Presse
Pet boar can stay with French owner for now: court
Lille (France) (AFP) - A French woman who has kept a wild boar as a pet since she found and tamed it can keep it for now, a court has ordered, overruling local authorities who insisted the animal should be removed or killed.
Horse breeder Elodie Cappe found the female boar - named Rillette after a delicacy usually made from pork - in 2023, when it was still a piglet, near a stable complex she runs in Chaource, in central-eastern France.
The local town hall informed Cappe that she would have to find “an adapted structure” for the boar, which weighed up to 100 kilos, or else euthanize it.
The order caused an outcry among animal lovers in France and abroad, with former film star and prominent animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot speaking out to save Rillette.
Several petitions launched on the Change.org website calling for the boar to be allowed to remain on the site gathered a total of around 300,000 signatures.
After the city council rejected all requests to withdraw its opposition to Rillette staying with his owner, Cappe took the case to an administrative court in November.
In the decision handed down on Thursday, the court rejected the administration's argument that non-domesticated animals can only be kept by private individuals if they come from a recognized breeding center.
“Nowhere,” said the court, does the law state that ‘they must have been born and bred in captivity’.
Despite admitting that, in principle, it is illegal to capture wild boar, the judge noted that the town hall can grant exceptions and asked the administration to reconsider its position.
“We are very happy,” Cappe told AFP, adding that she hoped that ‘finally’ the town hall would allow her to stay with Rillette.
Her lawyer, Karl Burger, added that Cappe has complied with all the requirements for keeping non-domesticated animals, including Rillette's vaccination and sterilization and a safe, enclosed shelter.
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