Thursday, March 28

The veterinarian from Extremadura who succeeds as a hunter


Last Friday, March 4, on the occasion of International Women’s Day, María Fernández Ortiz received one of the four ‘Women with Power’ awards, which are granted by the Government Delegation in Extremadura to those who stand out in their professional field or have signed a an achievement that contributes to placing the female group in its rightful place. If the event had been held a day later, they would have done Fernandez a job, because her perfect Saturdays go through the fields, her dogs and her hunting. That is her world, in which she has already achieved a few successes and the one that has led her to be recognized as an example to take note of.

Born in Quintana de la Serena 33 years ago, María Fernández Ortiz studied Veterinary Medicine at the University of Extremadura. A logical choice for someone who grew up in a family where the countryside and rural areas are part of everyday life. “Since I was little I was clear that I wanted to be a veterinarian,” she says. Because animals have always been part of my life. “My family has taught me to understand the countryside and love rural life,” expands the young woman, who began to relate to the hunting sector thanks to her father.

“I always went hunting with him, and also with my two brothers, who are older than me and are amateurs,” explains Fernández, who in those first outings began to lay the foundations that help explain the present. “Every time my father went hunting, I accompanied him,” he recalls. Even then, the countryside, nature, dogs … And once I was able to get my gun permit, I started hunting by myself, always accompanied by my father’s gang and his friends » .

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To that gang that began with six or seven friends, the children were added, as is her case, and even some grandchildren of those first with whom she shared her first days between shotguns. “My father passed away, but I continue hunting with his crew, with whom he used to go out into the fields fifty years ago and in which now we are also children and grandchildren of those who first set it up,” says the veterinarian, who feels proud of having been able “to preserve the legacy of our parents and maintain the tradition that they loved so much”.

She has been champion of Spain in the category of San Huberto and twice third in small game hunting with a dog.

Fernandez hasn’t forgotten the first piece he shot down. “She was a partridge in the local hunting society of Quintana de la Serena,” recalls the veterinarian, who from Monday to Friday is focused on attending her clinic. When she finishes her work, she dedicates herself to training her dogs, an English setter with whom she goes hunting for small game and a German Shorthaired Pointer that accompanies her when she practices Saint Hubertus.

The latter consists of “exhibiting in the open field for twenty minutes what would be a perfect day of small game hunting, trying to show a total symbiosis with your dog and respecting nature,” she explains. “The dog must be trained so that it knows how to respect the flight and the shot and collect the piece at the hunter’s command,” she expands from the experience of years of practice and with the endorsement of the successes achieved in competitions of this variant. . «During the twenty minutes that the test lasts, you have to knock down two of the three pieces that they put on you, and all the time there are two judges who mark you in which field you must move and assess how you do it».

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In 2019, she was champion of Spain de San Huberto, which allowed her to participate in the world championship held in Serbia, where she finished in fifth position. A meritorious position considering that it was her first experience with pheasants, a very rare species in Extremadura. «Participating in the world championship – she recalls – was a beautiful experience, because you learn to know how they hunt in other countries, you see other modalities up close and you feel the values ​​of hunting».

In the modality of small game hunting with a dog, María Fernández has also managed to get on the podium, since she was third in the national championship in 2017 and 2021. These good results are helped by perseverance in training. “I take the dogs out to run in the fields two or three days a week, and I go hunting every weekend, if it can be Saturday and Sunday,” says the Extremaduran veterinarian, who appreciates in hunting practice “a set of benefits that go far beyond the act of taking down a piece.

“Hunting – he reflects – is a very important source of economic income, it helps maintain the populations of hunting and non-hunting species, takes care of nature and is essential for the rural world of Extremadura”.


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