Study of the determinative factors of agricultural game damage in the SEFAG Inc.

Abstract

One of the biggest problems of game management is game damage which goes to great expense. It has been increasing since 1994 countrywide. In the last hunting year more than 1600 million HUF were paid nationwide for it. Nearly 10% of it was paid by the largest game manager company the SEFAG Inc. in Somogy county. According to various literary sources the reason of forest- and agricultural damage is the increasing number of deer and wild boar. In spite of it we suppose that game damage is influenced by other factors. We set examining these factors as an aim with the help of the methods of statistic and operative research. We have the basic pieces of information from the data base of the two forestries of SEFAG Inc. In the two forestries the amount of game damage, the number of the cases and the amount of missing crop grew. The quantity of damaged fields shows a downward tendency in the case of Kaposvár Forestry. There is a strong connection between the game damage cases and the amount of game damage. Per capita the game damage rose in the Kaposvár Forestry while in Zselic Forestry it fell. Examining the measurement of the fields we came to the conclusion that in most cases the majority of game damage falls to the areas with less than 5 ha. While the amount of game damage and the missing crop – depending on the forestries – are the largest in the cases of the areas with more than 10 ha. There is an inverse relationship between the plot size and the number of the cases, a medium inverse relationship between the plot size and the amount of game damage and a weak inverse correlation between the plot size and the missing crops.