Hobby hunters kill stag on the property of star director
On Friday, 21 February 2025, French director Luc Besson strongly condemned the intrusion of hobby hunters onto his property in the Département Orne. There, a hunted stag was killed in a bestial manner just a few metres from his mother.
According to reports, the hobby hunters had trespassed onto the property of Luc Besson's mother in Orne, Normandy, France, after a stag chased by their dogs had taken refuge on the terrace and then fallen.
According to the filmmaker, the animal was “butchered with knives” in front of his 85-year-old mother.
Stag killed with a knife on the terrace
The ecological mass killers grabbed the completely terrified animal by its antlers and killed it with a knife. The killers repeatedly stabbed the dying stag in the abdomen until it bled to death. The animal welfare problem of recreational hunting is revealed here in all its brutality.
Luc Besson is outraged and condemns these practices, which he describes as “slaughter”. He insists that he has refused to allow recreational hunting on his estate for years. “I have nothing against hobby hunters, but I want deer to have at least one safe refuge,” he said.
Luc Besson announced that he would press criminal charges against those responsible and protested against the behaviour of the hobby hunters. “Shame on them, this is not hunting!” he said, recalling that such intrusions onto his property occur time and again. More on crime in the context of recreational hunting.
Controversy over dog hunting in France
This new incident reignites the controversy surrounding dog hunting in France. Last January, Tom Arthus-Bertrand, son of photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, also denounced similar practices on his land and launched a petition to ban this form of recreational hunting. As studies show, recreational hunting fails as population control.
