Heroic rescue: Hunting dog survives deadly fall
Firefighters and the animal welfare unit intervened on 16 February 2025 at around 5 p.m. in Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort, France, to rescue a hunting dog. The animal had become stranded on a rock ledge after a tremendous fall. The rescue operation lasted 4 hours.
A lucky escape for this hunting dog.
A recreational hunter's hunting dog survived an ordinarily fatal fall on Sunday, 16 February 2025, plummeting nearly 60 metres down a cliff face. It ultimately landed at extreme depth on a small rock ledge and waited patiently for help.
Drones locate the dog in the depths
The fire brigade and the specialist animal rescue unit were alerted by the recreational hunter.
The rescue teams therefore made their way to the scene of the accident to attempt to locate the animal. They deployed drones and were able to find the dog without difficulty. A rescuer was then lowered down with a harness to retrieve him.
Rescue operations for hunting dogs once a week
«He was not injured at all, just exhausted from remaining in the same position for so long,» said Commander Baro.
«During the hunting season, we intervene on average once a week to help dogs. They are so absorbed in their recreational hunting that they often fail to pay attention and end up in dangerous situations,» he admitted. Yet another example of the animal welfare problem of recreational hunting.
Following the intervention, the animal was ultimately returned to the recreational hunter. More on crime and recreational hunting.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier The Role and Criticism of Recreational Hunters we shed light on the training, power and self-image of recreational hunters. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
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.
