Hunting Season

Members can have access to the places where they are allowed to hunt in this link by each municipality, in accordance with  their hunting licence.

Please note that hunting is prohibited within 250 meters of residential housing. Therefore, if you have not given consent to this or an agreement to integrate your land into a Hunting Zone, you must inform your local GNR if you believe that hunters are violating this restriction.

We have been asked if hunters are allowed to hunt in unfenced (open) land or land fenced with a net. The best way to ensure that hunters don’t trespass onto private land is have a brick wall of at least 1.5 metres in height constructed around the land. 

However, if you do not wish hunters to pass onto your land and you do not have a brick wall boundary, you can apply to the local authority for hunting exclusion and erect the sign indicated below and it has the same effect as the wall. Of course a hunter can’t say that they didn’t see a wall.

If you have not given consent to include your land into a Hunting Zone and you encounter hunters or evidence that they have been on your land, you must inform the GNR, which is the entity responsible for policing and supervising hunting. 

Even in areas that are designated for hunting, it clearly states in the law that hunting is NOT allowed within:

100 metres of highways, national roads (EN) and railway tracks

250 metres of garden walls, barns, roads and houses

500 metres of Beaches; Schools; Hospitals; Prisons; Orphanages; Retirement homes; Military Installations; Nurseries (kindergarten); Electric facilities; Lighthouses; River Harbours; Airports; Tourist complexes; Camp sites; Sports halls; Industrial Complexes and Animal Shelters.

If you are not sure whether your property is located in a hunting area, you can ask your local “Junta de Freguesia”, as they receive the most up to date information on hunting areas every year. 

The afpop Fact Sheet on Hunting (FS 5 and FS 5A – Annex), which can be downloaded from the Members’ area of the website or requested by e-mail from the office, has been update and now contains the annual table of hunting dates as produced by ICNF (Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas) and also a list of what species can be hunted throughout the year.

Please see below the most common Hunting Signs

Hunting forbidden without the owner´s agreement             

Hunting forbidden 

Hunting area

Hunting forbidden in particular areas

No hunting area