The True Profile of Recreational Hunters in France
Tens of thousands of recreational hunters took to the streets in France. But behind the orange façade lie hunting accidents and violence against animals.
Last Saturday, 18 September 2021, tens of thousands of recreational hunters demonstrated across France.
70% of recreational hunters are city dwellers
The defenders of traditional recreational hunting presented themselves in the best possible light. They were well-behaved, all neatly dressed in orange, with no vulgar or provocative signs on display. Just a single slogan: «We are the rural world» — and they also claimed to be France’s first ecologists.But what does reality look like?
The claim of rurality does not hold up to scrutiny. According to a study by the Sommer Foundation and an IPSOS/LPO survey, nearly 70% of recreational hunters are city dwellers. Around half of France’s recreational wildlife killers live in towns with more than 20,000 inhabitants. Fewer than 4% of recreational hunters are farmers.
In fact, tensions between recreational hunters and farmers are growing ever sharper due to the catastrophic mismanagement of wild boar populations.Furthermore, more and more farmers are lamenting the eradication of their most important allies — foxes — as a consequence of vole damage to their fields.
Between 20,000 and 40,000 fewer recreational hunters per year
From 2,350,000 in 1984, the number of these armed individuals fell to 1,100,000 in 2018 and today stands below the symbolic threshold of one million. Given the age pyramid (60% are over 50, of whom 31.4% are 65 or older), there are between 20,000 and 40,000 fewer recreational hunters every year.
«“Have you ever hunted?” the pollsters asked. The answer: Yes 9%, No 91%.71% of French people do not feel safe in the countryside during hunting season. And among the various types of hunting, hunting with dogs is particularly unpopular: 86% are opposed to it.
This Recreational hunting, which causes appalling suffering — such as strangling birds — takes place purely for pleasure, for entertainment. We are no longer living in a time of war or famine, writes charliehebdo.fr.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. The scientific evidence is presented in the overview Studies on the Effects of Recreational Hunting.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
