Penned hunting: the reality highlighted by One Voice in eighteen French towns on 19, 20, and 26 February 2022

In 2021, One Voice published their investigation revealing how animals live during penned hunts, in Sologne and elsewhere in France, reporting on the cruelty of such practices. The association has also published a map of the pens that are publicly promoting, and revealed that some farms more often than not allow a permanent supply of prey in these places where death is everywhere. After our involvement in a hearing regarding fencing in nature on 8 January at the Senate, we are now also taking action on the ground, closer to the public, to raise awareness of this issue, highlighting the issues with our relationship to wild animals, the cruelty towards sensitive beings, and biodiversity.
In eighteen towns in France, our activists will also host stands and will organise audience participation events on 19, 20, and 26 February 2022. In Fréjus in particular, a very audio-visual display will take place (see the description at the end of this report).

Penned hunting: a lucrative trade in death

Penned hunting is certainly a business where hunters pay to kill. In the enclosure, the animals have no chance of escaping the hunt. In fact, they are shut in and have nowhere to escape to. They are shot down by groups with no compassion, day after day, for the pleasure of whom all of this has been organised.
In 2020-2021, One Voice’s investigators infiltrated these places reserved for hunting that charge per day and/or per animal shot.

Hundreds of penned hunts and wild animal farms in France

In France, penned hunting is an all too real drama theatre for the animals. There are hundreds in our country
who advertise on the Internet. In reality, there are many more. Meanwhile, the association has published the results of more than two years of proceedings alongside Prefectures throughout France to obtain the addresses and types of official farms, and has created another map. Wild boars are bred in great numbers for the pleasure of the hunters hunting and killing them. This is also true for deer, fallow deer, squirrels…

Penned hunting: an amusement park for hunters lacking kills

In the morning, the organisers of these days announce to the hunters gathered that all of the animals in the ‘park’ can be killed, even the pregnant sows; the hunters are nothing more than customers and if they do not see any animals or aren’t able to shoot them during a hunt, an opportunity will be provided for them in the next hunt.
At the end of the day, they leave with a corpse in their boot and potentially a trophy. They didn’t come to hunt but to kill, and the hunting tallies are solid in this respect. As many as forty large animals each, or even more so… it is an amusement park for hunters. If they want to slay more, they have to pay more.

A radical reform needed

Hunting must be entirely reformed. Banning penned hunting would be a beneficial first step for wild animals. In our country, given the way that wild animals are treated, penned hunting is a disgrace to human dignity. Not to mention the conditions in which ‘hunting’ dogs have to live… Changing this would show an example to our younger generations.

Our activists will therefore be in Aix-en-Provence, Annecy, Beauvais, Biarritz, Bordeaux, Capdenac-le-Haut, Château-Arnoux-Saint-Auban, Falaise, Fréjus (where the audience participation event will feature almost life-size wooden animal silhouettes positioned so that they form a target on the ground, with the sound of gunshots and them falling to the floor), La Rochelle, Lille, Lyon, Metz, Nantes, Paris, Rouen, Strasbourg, and Troyes on the 19, 20, and 26 February to raise awareness of this issue to the public.

• Our campaign website on penned hunting: https://www.stop-chasse.fr/

• Our petitions:

• To put an end to penned hunting, farms, and spearing

• For a radical reform of hunting

Our events are subject to change up until the last minute, due to reasons related to times or permissions. You can visit the link of the event before going. We update them live.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice