Lack of safety in hunting: hunters 1, others 0

While 4 in 5 French people are favourable towards a ban on hunting on Sundays, the day when the largest number of accidents linked to this hobby are reported, the State prefers to strengthen the interests of a dangerously armed minority: an app-gadget to signal horse and hound hunts is not only anti-democratic, it is also to the advantage of hunters who will have their sense of ownership of nature and biodiversity reinforced.

Against the overwhelming majority of French people in favour of stopping hunting on a Sunday (78%*), the hunting lobby offers ridiculous gadgets and refuses any progression. And what is the State doing? It is listening to the lobby.

In response to the problem of a lack of safety linked to their hobby, hunters offer an app that is just as useless as it is dangerous. They are already struggling to put ‘hunting in progress’ signs up properly; we wonder how an app, with all the eventualities that this involves (having a smartphone, signal, etc.) could be shown to be effective.

With this tool, hunters would signal to walkers, urging them to avoid ‘danger bubbles’ — in reality these areas are much larger than indicated, given the range of weapons — and to head towards ‘safe’ zones.

But everything rings untrue:

• There is no signal in many natural zones affected by hunting;
• The app is not compulsory and will only relate to the hunts;
• It assumes that all hunters and walkers have a smartphone, and that they would systematically think to go onto the app;
• A single hunter could find themselves outside of the ‘danger bubble’ indicated;
• Such a gadget gives a false impression of safety to walkers, and would above all give hunters a clear conscience, who would feel free from any constraints and responsibility: in the event of an accident, who would be responsible? Victims or hunters?
• What would happen if a walker, in the middle of their hike, received an alert to signal that a hunt was about to start around them?

In reality, this app would do nothing but reinforce the dominance of hunters over nature and make this dangerous (or even deadly, for other people) ‘hobby’ legitimate. In summary, the message is “Clear off, we are hunting! ”.

Sundays without hunting was brought in in England in 1831, and nowadays in numerous other countries in Europe (the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Portugal…) observing at least one national hunt-free day. But not in France, where the powerful hunting lobby has been imposing their diktat for decades, when they do not even represent 2% of the population.

In short, rather than restricting hunting, the government prefers to restrict the freedom of others: French people have no other choice than to zigzag between the ‘danger bubbles’, or to stay at home, as already recommended by the head of the Fédération nationale des chasseurs [National Federation of Hunters]… Did you say democracy?

Associations that have signed:
Animal Cross, ASPAS, Fondation Brigitte Bardot, Humanité & Biodiversité, LPO, One Voice, SFEPM, Stéphane Lamart, Un Jour Un Chasseur, WWF

*IFOP survey, December 2022

Translated from the French by Joely Justice