HUNTING ACCIDENT. The death of a 25-year-old hiker on Saturday February 19 during a wild boar hunt in Cantal has put the subject of hunting back at the heart of the debate. The government reacted by indicating that new rules could be put in place.
[Mis à jour le 21 février 2022 à 19h47] A terrible hunting accident occurred this Saturday in Cantal in the town of Cassaniouze where a 25-year-old hiker received a stray bullet. Finding herself on a marked path with her companion, the young woman from Aveyron was hit by a bullet from a 17-year-old hunter, while a wild boar beat was taking place in the same area. She died instantly according to The mountain. The author of the shot was placed Sunday morning in police custody for manslaughter. A news item that revives the debate on hunting in the middle of the presidential campaign.
“It turns out most of the time, even on each accident, that what we see is a failure to respect the safety rules” of hunters, said on Monday on franceinfo, Bérangère Abba, Secretary of State for Biodiversity. “The most essential rules such as respecting the shooting angle, knowing your environment, are often violated in the event of accidents.” According to The Parisian, the rules for signaling the beat would not have been respected. “If it turns out that we still have things to strengthen, we will,” she added, recalling having announced “the creation of a geolocation app in which we could know around us where the beatings take place”.
After another hunting accident last November, uA petition calling for a ban on hunting on Wednesdays and Sundays had collected more than 120,000 signatures. Ihe Minister of Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompili, had assured, to be “open to debate” to ban these practices on weekends. Since then, the minister had rather favored the strengthening of controls and measures at the local level, in consultation with the hunting federations, in particular to withdraw their licenses from hunters who do not respect the rules.
To hunt, hunting permit is compulsory and can be obtained from the age of 15, although hunting is only authorized from the age of 16. A law put in place in 2019 established “the compulsory wearing of fluorescent vests for hunters in collective action hunting large game” and requires the break of prevention signs (of the “hunting in progress” type) “nearby immediate access to public roads during collective big game hunting actions”. It also sets up the obligation every ten years for hunters to do an update “on the basic rules of safety”.
The National Hunting Federation reminds you that you should “not shoot game in the direction of houses and roads.” “Firing is never done at head height, nor without having ensured that the area swept by the guns is deserted and without risk”, she indicates, recalling that the weapon must only be “loaded when the hunter is ready to fire. The rest of the time the weapon is unloaded and open.”
According to the report on hunting accidents and incidents 2020-2021, published a few months ago, “70 hunters were fined and around ten legal proceedings were opened for offenses likely to constitute misdemeanors ( …) The decline in the number of accidents has been steady for more than 20 years but our efforts to reduce them must continue. One hunting accident is always one too many,” the report said. In July 2019, several measures were adopted by Parliament, namely the obligation to wear fluorescent vests for hunters during these actions and the establishment of signs for collective shooting hunting operations. Nearly 90% of the victims of hunting accidents remain hunters, specifies the latest report from the OFB.
After the drama of this Saturday in Cantal, the presidential candidates Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI) and Yannick Jadot (EELV) thus proposed that hunting be prohibited on weekends and during school holidays. With the most hunters in Europe, France is also the only European country allowing to practice every day during the season, while the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands or Portugal have established one or more days of non-hunting.