Hunting: three more deaths and injured walkers

Between late November 2025 and early March 2026, accidents multiplied in France, serving as a reminder that hunting is not only dangerous for the animals it targets, but also for humans who do not take part in it.

Two joggers injured by stray bullets

On 30 November 2025, in Plémet (Côtes-d’Armor), a bullet fired during a drive hunt passed through the window of a house and came to rest in a built-in oven. A tragedy was narrowly averted: the kitchen was empty at the time of impact.

A few weeks later, the danger struck a walker directly. In Vaison-la-Romaine, a 25-year-old jogger was seriously injured by a hunter who claimed to have mistaken him for wild boar. The bullet shattered his knee, leaving him with permanent disability.

Unfortunately, such incidents are far from rare. Hunting accidents occur every year and affect people who have absolutely no connection to the pursuit.

In forests, on public paths, and even at home, anyone can find themselves in the line of fire. In Bormes-les-Mimosas, two mushroom pickers found themselves caught in the middle of a driven hunt and had to throw themselves to the ground and cry out to avoid being targeted.

In the Jura region, a jogger was shot in the foot. On a road in the Aisne region, a wedding procession was halted by a hound hunt, with shots ringing out just a few metres from the guests.

Three hunters victims of their own practices; animals hunted and killed

Whilst the violence of hunting affects humans, dogs also pay a heavy price. Wild boar drives regularly result in animals being seriously injured or killed. In the Landes region, eight dogs were injured during a hunt. In the Vendée region, two died and five others were maimed.

Not to mention our pets, all too often caught in the trap of these armed hunts: in the Haute-Saône region, a cat at a château was killed by hunting dogs that had entered private property.

And the wildlife is subjected to scenes of a brutality rarely shown. In February 2026, a stag chased by dogs ended up on a motorway (with all the risks that entails for motorists) after being bitten on the legs, before being shot dead.

A deadly season

During the 2024/2025 season, the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB) recorded 11 fatal accidents involving hunters, compared with six in the two previous seasons. The winter of 2025–2026 was marked by a series of incidents: accidental shots to the hands or legs, ricocheting bullets, falls from hunting hides, and hunters injured by their own weapons. In the Somme, a man was shot dead during a driven hunt, whilst another was seriously injured on the same day.

In the Eure region, a hunter died after tripping over barbed wire whilst carrying a loaded rifle. In the Charente region, another drowned after falling into a river. These tragedies come on top of the numerous incidents already recorded at the start of the season, and these numbers are based solely on our press review: it is likely that many other accidents have gone unrecorded.

Hunting: a risk to everyone

These events are not isolated accidents. They are the logical consequence of a system that permits the use of firearms in public spaces frequented by everyone: paths, forests, roads and inhabited countryside.

The question is therefore no longer whether such tragedies can happen, but how much longer our society will accept that an armed leisure activity poses such a risk to the public and inflicts such violence on animals.

Join our campaign and sign our petition for a radical reform of hunting!

Hunting: three more deaths and injured walkers

41 accidents in three months, 3 deaths. Walkers and joggers remain the collateral victims of hunting.