New investigation! Training for hunting licences infiltrated by One Voice
In 2019, One Voice infiltrated hunting licence training. Two half-days are insufficient to teach future hunters to handle weapons without risk.
After preparing for the written questions in the hunting licence exam, future hunters have two half-days of training in practical exercises. Our investigators infiltrated this practical training in Occitania in the summer of 2019. On site, some future hunters handled a gun for the first time. Due to a lack of time, trainers encouraged licence candidates to take a weapon and practice at home to finish preparing for the exam on their own. On D-day, the exam has to take place on the same route as the training. Ideal conditions for inexperienced shooters to obtain their hunting licence and become a danger to their environment.
The footage filmed by our investigators during the practical training for the exam for a hunting licence left little room for doubt: the time to practice before potentially obtaining a licence is far too short for future hunters to learn to handle a weapon safely. Especially since some were handling a gun for the first time. The tension is palpable between a trainer and a hopeful licence holder who struggles to place his finger correctly on his weapon before shooting. After having repeated the set position three times, the trainer eventually advised him to “borrow a gun” and practice the position a hundred times at home at the weekend. Encouragement to train alone before the exam, repeated by other trainers and well incorporated by hopeful licence holders, visibly worried about the speed of the training. “The route, over there, is a bit hard for me”, admitted a young 16-year-old girl at the end of the training. “Especially since it’s the first time… I am going to try to find someone who can lend me a gun so I can practice.” Impossible to know, in these circumstances, if the hopeful licence holders will practice by the rule book. In any case, 70% of them on average will obtain this licence for only €46.
Safety rules abandoned on site
Furthermore, discussions with hunters revealed routine violations of the law. “At the beginning, if we did everything that we learnt here, other hunters would say “what planet is this from?”, because older hunters absolutely do not follow safety rules”, says one woman in particular. We therefore learnt that to be accepted by other hunters, new hunting licence holders must forget the safety rules they learnt already too quickly during their training. Another concern, given that 90 hunting accidents were still recorded in the 2021-2022 season.
As a reminder, our September 2022 survey with Ipsos revealed that despite a slight increase in people declaring themselves in favour of hunting, 48% of French people are still opposed to it and that, above all, 87% think that hunting poses safety issues for walkers during their walks in the countryside.
To radically reform hunting, sign our petition and let’s call on the government! Let’s ask them to put an end to this activity’s worst practices!
One Voice’s notes: the images date to the summer of 2019. With two teams having investigated up to the end of 2021, we have delayed the broadcast of certain videos to guarantee their safety. You can find the work already published below:
- In France, foxes are killed year round : infiltration into an underground hunting group.
- Badger hunting: hell underground.
- Penned hunting infiltrated by One Voice
Translated from the French by Joely Justice