A bird taken in Saône-et-Loire carries a coloured, numbered ring? That number is enough to trace it back to its release, whether you hunt near Mâcon or in any of the department's 563 municipalities. RingFollow never publishes the name of a hunter, an ACCA (approved communal hunting association) or a municipality, nor any count below 3. Saône-et-Loire is one of the eight departments of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, with Mâcon as its prefecture.
Ring tracking in Saône-et-Loire
For department 71, no federation uses RingFollow at present. Nothing changes for the hunter: the report is made the same way, and federations, not GIBIS, validate recoveries. If the bird comes from a release in a department whose federation is registered, that federation validates the recovery; otherwise the report stays on file for Saône-et-Loire.
From photo to report
- 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.
- If the bird carries a wing tag rather than a leg ring, say so at the same step, together with the species.
- Send the report; name, phone and e-mail are optional, but an e-mail address gets you an acknowledgement.
Neighbouring departments
Its neighbours are Loire to the south, Rhône to the south, Nièvre to the north-west, Ain to the south-east, Jura to the east, Côte-d'Or to the north and Allier to the west. Beyond the regional boundary lies the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Among its neighbours, the share of agricultural areas ranges from 45% (Jura) to 79% (Allier), against 72% here (CORINE Land Cover 2018). Of these, Ain tracks its rings on RingFollow.
What happens to the report
The report is recorded as soon as it arrives, with the photo and the municipality given. 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 Without a match, the report stays on file for Saône-et-Loire, unpublished, until a federation can validate it. Reports are kept for five hunting seasons after the recovery, then retained only in anonymised form for statistics (see the privacy policy).
What a reported ring is for
Every recovery reported gives a date, a distance and a species. Added together, they give an operation's recovery rate and how far the birds disperse after release: enough to adjust future releases in Saône-et-Loire.
Within the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region
The other departments of the region are Doubs, Yonne, Côte-d'Or, Nièvre, Jura, Haute-Saône and Territoire de Belfort. None of the eight departments in the region has a federation tracking its rings on RingFollow at present (see the Federations page). The share of agricultural areas (72%) is higher here than in any other department of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region.
Land and population
According to CORINE Land Cover, agricultural areas covered 72% of the department in 2018, forests and semi-natural areas 23%. The rest is shared between artificial surfaces (5%) and water bodies (1%). With 550,310 inhabitants (INSEE, 2022 population count) on about 8,610 km², the density is roughly 64 inhabitants per km²; the department has 563 municipalities. Its arrondissements are administered from Mâcon (prefecture), Autun, Chalon-sur-Saône, Charolles and Louhans.
Sources: INSEE (official geographic code 2025, 2022 population counts), OFB / EEA (CORINE Land Cover 2018), geo.api.gouv.fr (areas).
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.
What the rings say in Saône-et-Loire
- The count of validated recoveries in Saône-et-Loire still stands at zero.
- No report linked to the department is awaiting validation.
- Nationwide, RingFollow records 85 ringed releases (3,592 birds) and 16 validated recoveries, across 5 participating federations.
Game-bird rings: common questions
Do I have to give my name to report a ring in Saône-et-Loire?
No. Name, phone and e-mail are optional; an e-mail address only gets you an acknowledgement. Only the validating federation sees what you leave.
Where do I report a pheasant ring found in Saône-et-Loire?
On bagues.gibis.fr, from a phone: a photo of the ring, the species and the municipality where the bird was taken are enough. No account is needed.
Does GIBIS validate reports from Saône-et-Loire?
No, never. Recoveries are validated by the federation of the department where the bird was released, if it is registered on RingFollow.
How do I recognise a Gibis ring found in Saône-et-Loire?
A coloured, numbered leg ring, or a numbered coloured plastic wing tag, with no address. A ring engraved with an address belongs to another scheme: the guide explains where to report it.
Which neighbouring departments track their rings on RingFollow?
Ain. Each has its own page on this site.
For federations
The situation of every federation is on the Federations page. A federation that would like to track its recoveries can write to gibis@gibis.fr.
To get an idea of a department page with its statistics, see the sample page (simulated data).