Hunting safety: at least four dead and seven injured in less than two months
Between 19 October and 6 November 2025, four hunters were killed while hunting, and at least seven other people were injured as a result of this cruel pastime. One Voice condemns these recurring accidents which add many more victims to the 45 million animals slaughtered each year. Hunting is a deadly practice that urgently needs to be reformed!
Hunter under the influence: dog hit by car, driver assaulted
Last October, a motorist was driving along a country road through the hamlet of Espanel when he hit a “hunting” dog that was crossing the road during a wild boar hunt. Probably stunned, the 60-year-old man was violently assaulted by the hunter. He was punched in the face, and his vehicle was damaged. He lost a tooth and his glasses in this senseless outburst of violence. Convicted a few months earlier for domestic violence, the attacker tested positive for cocaine and amphetamines after being taken into custody. It is to individuals like this, who are dangerous to both humans and other animals, that we issue a licence that is nothing short of a bad joke and the right to own a weapon…
Four hunters died while pursuing animals
Over a two-month period, two hunters drowned while persecuting animals, the first in a lake in Maudétour-en-Vexin (Val-d’Oise) into which his dog had ventured during a wild boar hunt, and the second in Travecy (Aisne) after falling from a boat while hunting ducks. A third man lost his life near Brue-Auriac (Var) after setting out alone in search of a wild boar wounded during a hunt, while a fourth reportedly fell to his death in La Morte (Isère) while attempting to retrieve the carcass of an animal he had just shot.
A walker, a runner and a child injured
When they are not injured, sometimes seriously, by the animals they hunt, as in the La Clapade area (Aveyron) or Saint-Nazaire-des-Gardies (Gard), or when they are not injuring each other, or even themselves, these trigger-happy individuals sometimes have the bright idea of involving children in their obsession, with no regard for their sensitivity or their lives, as in the case of a ten-year-old girl who was hospitalised for a day and a half after a deer hunt. However, you don’t have to be related to a hunter to be in danger: all citizens who simply want to enjoy nature are at risk! In November, a jogger was seriously injured by a bullet near Vaison-la-Romaine (Vaucluse). A few days later, it was the turn of a man walking in the Finistère countryside to be hit in the leg by a bullet fragment during a wild boar hunt. These numerous casualties would be easily avoidable if only hunters would give up their thirst for killing.
A systemic problem
These are the accidents that we have been able to identify in the press. How many others go unreported by the media? Hunting federations may well distance themselves from those responsible by placing all the blame on them, but we are not fooled. Every year, these armed men privatise nature for their own leisure, inevitably making it dangerous for all, to the point that the 2024-2025 season saw a record increase in the number of accidents and deaths, while tens of millions of animals continue to be slaughtered. This must stop.
Make your indignation heard by signing our petition for a radical reform of hunting!