Italy: Recreational hunter shoots himself
The 18-year-old junior world champion in clay pigeon shooting, Cristian Ghilli, accidentally shot himself during a recreational hunt in Tuscany.
In a tragic hunting accident in Tuscany, clay pigeon shooter Cristian Ghilli has died.
The 18-year-old junior world champion in shooting, Cristian Ghilli, accidentally shot himself during a recreational hunt.
Fatal shots on a hunting outing
It was meant to be an enjoyable hunting trip with friends. But it ended in tragedy. Italian skeet junior world champion Cristian Ghilli accidentally shot himself in the abdomen. Ghilli is reported to have bent forward to pick up fresh cartridges when he fired multiple shots into his own body.
Following the emergency call, two ambulances raced to the scene of the accident in the woods of Montecatini Val di Cecina near Pisa. Ghilli was taken to hospital, but during the subsequent emergency operation the bleeding could not be stopped quickly enough. The 18-year-old recreational hunter succumbed to his injuries.
A promising talent lost
Ghilli was one of the greatest talents in clay pigeon shooting. Last October, the young athlete was crowned junior world champion in the team and mixed team events in Lima, Peru, and won bronze in the individual competition. In May of the previous year, Ghilli had won gold in the individual, team, and mixed team events at the Junior European Championships in Croatia. This incident joins the long list of hunting accidents that claim lives and leave people injured every year.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In our dossiers on the criticism of recreational hunting gather fact-checks, analyses and background reports. 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.
