Why are people still allowed to hunt past the age of 45?
When hobby hunting becomes a danger to everyone – and politicians continue to look the other way.
Another fatal shot – and once again it was all “an accident.”
An 83-year-old hobby hunter takes part in a driven hunt on Sunday, 19 October 2025, in the French département of Lot-et-Garonne. Shortly afterwards, a 64-year-old man is dead – struck by a bullet. A tragic “accident,” they say. But how many of these accidents does it take before someone asks the question that has long been pressing: why is a person still allowed to walk through the forest with a deadly weapon at the age of 80-plus? If an experienced hobby hunter can cause a fatal accident despite organized supervision, how safe are other people visiting the forest?
The largest age group among hobby hunters is 65+, those with age-related impairments in cognition, vision, concentration and reaction time, as well as deficits in training and practice. From the age of 45 onwards, the number of accidents involving humans and animals rises dramatically. Every 29 hours, an accident caused by hobby hunting occurs in Switzerland. The alarming reports of hunting accidents and fatal criminal acts involving hunters' weapons make it clear: it is high time to abolish hobby hunting! If the police or the military regularly recorded so many casualties, hardly anyone would speak of responsible conduct in the exercise of their duties. And what you truly love, you do not kill.
No age limit – no oversight – no sense of responsibility
In France, as in many other European countries, the rule is: once a hunting licence – always a hunting licence. The law sets a minimum age for obtaining a hunting licence, but no age at which one must stop.
No mandatory medical examination, no vision or hearing tests, no assessment of reaction capability. An 83-year-old is still allowed to shoot, as though time has stood still.
It would be like allowing someone at 83 to still drive a truck — without a driving test, without a vehicle inspection, without medical checks. Except that in this case the truck is a weapon — and the public space is a forest used by everyone. The road is a necessarily used public space with constant oversight — tests, penalty point systems, breathalyser checks, and so on. Recreational hunting, by contrast, is leisure, voluntary. Those who participate in it must not endanger others.
The Myth of “Experience”
Hunting associations like to argue with «experience». But experience does not replace physical fitness.
With advancing age, visual acuity, reaction time, and motor control all decline. This is not an insult — it is biology. And in a driven hunt, where people, animals, and dogs are moving simultaneously, a single mistake is enough — and someone is dead.
Experience cannot protect against such situations; in the worst case, it can even foster overconfidence.
Hunting Is Not a Fundamental Right
Nobody is forced to go hunting at over 80 years of age. Recreational hunting is not a duty, not a public service, not a contribution to the common good — it is a hobby.
Those who choose to be active in public with a firearm bear responsibility — for themselves and for others.
This includes:
- Regular medical fitness tests,
- a clear age limit,
- and an honest debate about whether armed leisure activities in shared forests are still appropriate for our times at all.
The Forest Belongs to Everyone — Not Only to Hobby Hunters
Hikers, joggers, horse riders, families — they all share the same habitat. Yet only one group roams there with rifles. And only for them are there hardly any requirements.
When a hobby hunter endangers others due to age-related infirmity or diminished perception, that is not a private matter. It is a societal and animal welfare problem. Many wild animals are merely wounded and suffer immense agony as a result.
The forest is not the hunting ground of a few individuals, but public space. Every person, every animal should be able to feel safe there — without fear of a shot fired from trembling hands.
Time to Act: An Age Limit Now!
It is time to take responsibility. Recreational hunting finally needs the same safety standards as any other dangerous activity.
The demand of IG Wild beim Wild:
- Medical and psychological fitness assessments every five years from the age of 45,
- Ban on active hobby hunting from age 65,
- Revocation of the hunting licence when the required health fitness is no longer given.
- Abolition of hobby hunting.
Anyone who is still aiming at animals at the age of 83 risks not only animal lives but also human lives. This freedom may appear traditional — but it is dangerous. A society that tolerates such risks is not protecting its nature, but its habits. The forest is not a shooting range. It is a habitat — for everyone.
It is high time to abolish hobby hunting! Deadly firearms do not belong in the hands of senile hobby hunters who can use them completely unchecked! Hobby hunters represent everything that is wrong with the world.
Hobby hunters live speciesism. Speciesism is comparable to racism and sexism, and that is not a culture or tradition.
