Three deaths on three Sundays: Brambilla calls for controls

The new hunting season in Italy has only just begun – and tragic accidents are once again claiming human lives.

Within just four weekends, three hobby hunters have been killed by shots fired by their companions. Yet another proof of how dangerous and uncontrollable hobby hunting has become.

Last weekend, another hunting outing ended fatally: in the woods of Faedis (Province of Udine), a 70-year-old hobby hunter was accidentally shot dead by a fellow hunter. Earlier, a 46-year-old died on 21 September in Carrù (Cuneo) and an 82-year-old on 5 October in Locana (Turin) in similar incidents. Dozens of other people were injured during this period – by ricochets, falls or careless handling of weapons.

The Italian member of parliament Michela Vittoria Brambilla, former tourism minister and well-known animal welfare activist, responded with clear words:

Hunting is anachronistic, cruel and dangerous. The average age of hunters is over 60. More controls are needed to protect everyone.

Brambilla criticises the fact that, despite the obvious risk, hardly any safety checks take place. Many of the roughly 500,000 Italian hobby hunters who have been active since the 1980s are now well over sixty – with diminishing reflexes and reduced reaction times. Yet they are still allowed to go stalking with modern high-performance weapons.

Alongside the human tragedies, Brambilla also points to the ecological damage caused by hobby hunting:

Apart from the harm to biodiversity and the environment, which in my opinion would be enough to ban hunting, one has to ask whether those who handle these weapons are even capable of doing so.

The politician sees the leniency towards the hunting community as a structural problem: a small, ageing yet influential lobby is clinging to privileges that are long since out of step with the times.

While the Italian public is outraged at the rising number of hunting accidents, concrete reforms have so far failed to materialise. Yet the series of fatal incidents over just three weekends shows: hobby hunting is not exclusively life-threatening for animals, but also for humans.

In the view of IG Wild beim Wild, hobby hunters should be required to undergo annual medical-psychological aptitude assessments modelled on the Dutch system, as well as a binding upper age limit. The largest age group among hobby hunters today is 65+. In this group, age-related impairments such as declining eyesight, slowed reaction times, lapses in concentration and cognitive deficits increase markedly in statistical terms. At the same time, accident analyses show that the number of serious hunting accidents involving injuries and fatalities rises significantly from middle age onwards.

The regular reports of hunting accidents, fatal errors and the misuse of hunting weapons highlight a structural problem. The private ownership and use of lethal firearms for recreational purposes largely eludes continuous oversight. From the perspective of IG Wild beim Wild, this can no longer be justified. A practice based on voluntary killing while at the same time generating considerable risks for humans and animals loses its social legitimacy.

Hobby hunting is moreover based on speciesism. Speciesism describes the systematic devaluation of non-human animals solely on the basis of their species membership. It is comparable to racism or sexism and can be justified neither culturally nor ethically. Tradition is no substitute for moral scrutiny.

In the field of hobby hunting in particular, critical scrutiny is indispensable. Hardly any other field is so shaped by glossed-over narratives, half-truths and deliberate disinformation. Where violence is normalised, narratives often serve to justify it. Transparency, verifiable facts and an open public debate are therefore indispensable.