A superficial reform to better maintain hunting?

More than a year after a deer was slaughtered at the Croix-Saint-Ouen and even though the vast majority of the country is opposed to this archaic and cruel practice, the State is submitting a draft decree modifying the 18^thMarch 1982 "concerning the exercise of hunting and is aiming to limit incidents at the end of hunting close to inhabited areas".

What is in this text?

A superficial reform, even cosmetic, of hunting with hounds, horns and screams. Instead of banning it and replying to the request of 82% of the French who oppose it, the State decides to keep it away from view and "limit" by six tenths the number of dogs allowed to chase these poor targeted animals. Dogs are piled into transport boxes, into the back of vans, stored as equipment, without water or food. They don’t waste a minute in the morning ... Who cares for these dogs, used as tools to hunt and living by with the whip? 

The stag of the Croix-Saint-Ouen and the one at Pont-Sainte Maxence, the hunters who were filmed by our cameras, the hunters who were pardoned because the stags were too close to villages, finally stabbed, drowned..., an all too common practice that we have become aware of. To prohibit the hunting of an animal until the limit of housing is not enough, it is only a way to allow these morally indefensible practices to persist against the majority view, it’s not enough. It will not alleviate the suffering of these sentient beings.

Tradition cannot justify barbarism

The huntsmen revel about a book about sociology (Hunting with hounds (La Chasse à courre), its rites and stakes) that describes their practices in every detail. But sociologists do not judge. A "total social fact" does not mean that it is good or morally acceptable. Ethics and modernity must prevail over barbarism, even if it were codified! Anthropologists keep repeating: a tradition changes over time and can be abandoned. Especially if the times have changed to the point that it becomes antiquated, obsolete or old fashioned. Traditions are the roots of a society, by nature changing and not its limiting framework. 

We urge you to participate in a number of public consultations to block this ministerial draft order on hunting with hounds, which will only reinforce the practice for years again, by giving the argument to the huntsmen that they will have been "reformed". Let's ask the ministry to abolish the hunt altogether!