Romanian billionaire attends new local hunt

Former tennis player and current billionaire Ion Tiriac and his guests will attend this week a new wild boar hunt at the Balc domain, in western Romania’s Bihor county. Tiriac is the only Romanian to feature in the Forbes ranking of the world’s richest. Remus Moţoc, the director of the Bihor Sanitary Veterinary Department (DSVSA), told Agerpres that a request was made on behalf of the businessman for a hunt to take place on January 18 and January 19. The billionaire’s yearly hunt took place last year in Ersig, in Caras Severin. But this year, the businessman returned with a new session on the domain he has been using since 2005. In Balc, he owns a hunting domain of over 1,100 hectares, according to media reports. Previous editions of the Balc hunt were attended by such businessmen as Wolfgang Porsche, Klaus Mangold, the former president of the Daimler-Chrysler group, Franz Rauch, a managing partner of Rauch Fruchtsäfte Gesellschaft, or Wolfgang Bernhard, the president of the Volkswagen board of administration, Agerpres reported. Former prime minister Adrian Nastase was also among the guests of Tiriac. On several occasions, representatives of animal welfare groups protested at the gates of the hunting domain. The DSVSA said it would take samples after the hunt to look for swine fever, after an African swine fever source was detected in Satu-Mare, in northern Romania. Man killed by bear during hunt in Romania editor@romania-insider.com