Coloured ring on the leg, number clearly legible: if you have recovered a farm-reared bird in Lot, here is where to report it and what happens to the information. RingFollow never publishes the name of a hunter, an ACCA (approved communal hunting association) or a municipality, nor any count below 3. Lot is one of the 13 departments of the Occitania region, with Cahors as its prefecture.
Ring tracking in Lot
The Lot hunters' federation (FDC 46) is not among the federations registered on RingFollow. Reporting remains possible and useful: the recovery is recorded, then reviewed by a federation; GIBIS plays no part in the validation. The ring number leads back to the original release: if the federation of the department where it took place is registered, it validates; if not, the report waits, filed under department 46.
Reporting in four steps
- Open bagues.gibis.fr on your phone and photograph the ring close up, in good light.
- Say where the bird was taken: the municipality is used for validation and never appears in public.
- Pick the species from the list (hare, grey partridge, red-legged partridge and pheasant); sex and circumstances are optional.
- Send: with no signal, the report goes out on its own as soon as coverage returns.
What a reported ring is for
ACCAs and federations fund releases; rings are the only way to know what they yield in the field. Consolidated figures are public on the Statistics page, by department.
Lot and its neighbours
Its neighbours are Tarn-et-Garonne to the south-west, Cantal to the north-east, Corrèze to the north, Lot-et-Garonne to the west, Dordogne to the north-west and Aveyron to the south-east. Beyond the regional boundary lie the regions of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Among its neighbours, the share of forests and semi-natural areas ranges from 17% (Tarn-et-Garonne) to 48% (Corrèze), against 49% here (CORINE Land Cover 2018). None of these neighbours tracks its rings on RingFollow; the nearest registered federation is in Haute-Loire, about 180 km to the east (centre to centre). Next come Isère (about 320 km) and Ain (about 335 km).
Breeding and restocking
The ringed birds tracked here come from the GIBIS game farm in Chatte (Isère). For the pheasant strain, see PUR CHASSE® pheasants; for restocking in general, restocking game birds.
The regional picture
Besides Lot, the Occitania region comprises Haute-Garonne, Lozère, Hérault, Pyrénées-Orientales, Gers, Hautes-Pyrénées, Gard, Ariège, Aveyron, Tarn-et-Garonne, Tarn and Aude. None of the 13 departments in the region has a federation tracking its rings on RingFollow at present (see the list by region).
What the rings say in Lot
- No validated recovery has been located in Lot on RingFollow so far.
- No report linked to the department is awaiting validation.
- For comparison, all of France: 3,592 ringed birds in 85 releases and 16 validated recoveries (5 participating federations); details on the Statistics page.
After you send it
Once sent, the report is kept; if you left an e-mail address, an acknowledgement follows. The ring number is then matched against known releases; if one took place in a department whose federation is registered, that federation validates the recovery. Without a match, the report stays on file for Lot, unpublished, until a federation can validate it. No hunter, ACCA or municipality is ever named: only totals per department and points rounded to about 1 km.
Key facts about Lot
The European CORINE Land Cover inventory (2018) puts forests and semi-natural areas at 49% of the area and agricultural areas at 48%. The rest is shared between artificial surfaces (2%) and water bodies (1%). With 176,473 inhabitants (INSEE, 2022 population count) on about 5,230 km², the density is roughly 34 inhabitants per km²; the department has 312 municipalities. The share of agricultural areas (48%) is lower here than in any of its six neighbours. Its arrondissements are administered from Cahors (prefecture), Figeac and Gourdon.
Sources: INSEE (official geographic code 2025, 2022 population counts), OFB / EEA (CORINE Land Cover 2018), geo.api.gouv.fr (areas).
Game-bird rings: common questions
Should a ring engraved with an address, found in Lot, be reported here?
No. RingFollow only covers game-farm rings, which carry no address. Rings from scientific ringing schemes are reported to those schemes; this site's guide tells you more.
How do I report a ringed partridge taken in Lot?
Just as for a pheasant: photo of the ring, number checked, species “red-legged partridge” or “grey partridge”, and the municipality. Nothing differs in Lot.
How long is a report from Lot kept?
Five hunting seasons, the duration of the restocking study. After that it is kept only in anonymised form, without contact details or licence number.
Which neighbouring departments track their rings on RingFollow?
None of its direct neighbours. The nearest registered federation is in Haute-Loire, about 180 km away between department centres.
Does GIBIS validate reports from Lot?
No, never. Recoveries are validated by the federation of the department where the bird was released, if it is registered on RingFollow.
Registering a federation
A registered federation validates the recoveries in its own department and can export its data. Full list: Federations; contact: gibis@gibis.fr.
To get an idea of a department page with its statistics, see the sample page (simulated data).