Montería (hunt)
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A montería (Spanish: [monteˈɾi.a]) is an ancient type of driven hunt endemic to Spain. It involves the tracking, chase and killing of big-game, typically red deer, wild boar, fallow deer and mouflon. A number of "rehalas" (packs of hounds) along with their respective "rehaleros" (unarmed beaters) will stir up an area of forest with the aim of forcing the game to move around and into the shooting pegs, where hunters will be able to fire.[1][2]
The earliest records of monterías date back to the Late Middle Ages in the Crown of Castile, as can be seen with king Alfonso XI and his "Libro de la montería", published in the first half of the 14th century. Modern monterías in the Spanish sense are the result of around 300 years of evolution from the most primitive hunts that were common in the Middle Ages.
As of today, two types of monterías exist; namely the "montería española" or "a la española", practised throughout the southern half of Spain and Portugal and the "montería norteña", typical of the northern half of Spain. While the latter is very similar to the rest of driven hunts occurring elsewhere in Europe, the former is culturally unique. Albeit, when monterías are brought up in the foreign context, it is almost always in reference to the former. Historians refer to the period 1915–1931 in rural Spain as the "época de oro de la montería española" (golden age of the Spanish montería).[3][4]
The season for monterías depends on the autonomous communities of Spain, as each of them establish their own calendars every year, but it is almost unexceptionally the same from one to the other. They are celebrated from mid-October until mid-February or in some cases the last weekend of said month.[5][6][7][8]
The sport is controversial, particularly in Spain. Advocates of monterías view it as an intrinsic part of rural economies, as well as necessary for conservation and population controls, whereas opponents argue on the grounds of animal cruelty and lack of necessity (the collected meat is nonetheless taken advantage of fully, and provides a sustainable and natural free range food source).[9] In 2016, a study by Deloitte estimated that hunting in Spain generated about €6.5 billion of Spain's GDP, amounting to 0.3% of the country's economy and 187,000 jobs, monterías being a significant part of this.[10][11][12]