What a boar!

Pesée du Sanglier... 109kg !
Originally uploaded by Céline Aussourd

Proud though these chasseurs look, they are showing off a mere lightweight compared to the Rasputin of wild boar's who almost felled a gun-wielding hunter near Bellegarde yesterday afternoon.

The pictured beast weighs in at 109 kilos but the Bellegarde-bruiser was a formidable heavyweight at 140 kilos, and he was not about to run for it when confronted by the boys of the 'Union des chasseurs de la Michaille'. Perhaps unwisely, he decided to charge the dog in the group, not banking on its 57 year old shotgun-toting owner leaping in between like Clint Eastwood in 'In the Line of Fire'.

If you've ever been to Bellegarde, then you will perfectly well understand the desire to throw yourself in front of a charging, quite unhappy wild boar, or indeed, a fast-moving locomotive. It makes Calais look more like Cannes.

Somehow the dog owner managed to fire off a few rounds in the wild boar's direction, fatally wounding the animal but not stopping it from taking a chunk out of the his leg. 'A mere flesh wound', he said, before being helicoptered to Annecy hospital.

But these hardy chasseurs are not confined to heavily wooded areas - the local papers report today that the locals in nearby Cluses have been taking pot-shots at passers by with air guns......