Pigs

Mon Quotidien, our children's newspaper, carries a report this week that one million sangliers (wild boar) live in France. And that French hunters killed 500,000 of them in 2007.

Cause for alarm? Is the sanglier going the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon, with extinction imminent? Not a bit of it. Without the gallant hunters, the sanglier population would explode, apparently. And they can cause damage if they get onto roads or into cities. So no worries about the slaughter.

The French government office responsible for such matters is the Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage. In that order. Motto: "Aimer la chasse, c'est avoir une autre passion : celle de la nature."