Tracks envisaged by government “to improve and guarantee hunting security”

A consultation phase will be engaged with the various actors, in particular the federations of hunters, with the objective of leading to concrete measures, taken by decree or by decree, “by the end of the Year, at the maximum at the start of the year, “announced the Secretary of State for Ecology, Bérangère Couillard, Tuesday.

Le Monde

The government announced, Tuesday, October 25, a “roadmap to improve and guarantee hunting safety”, considering in particular to establish a alcohol offense or, in certain regions, half-days without hunting .

“There is currently no framework concerning hunting blood alcohol level, we want to change this,” said the secretary of state in charge of ecology, Bérangère Couillard, during a trip to the Marne . “The practice of hunting implies a weapon, as with a car, it is incompatible with a strong blood alcohol.”

A consultation phase will be engaged with the various actors, in particular the federations of hunters, with the objective of leading to concrete measures (by decrees or decrees) “by the end of the year, as much as possible at the start of the year, “she said.

The Secretary of State also specified:

“My goal is clear: I want to tend to zero accident in the years to come and it will go through better respect for the rules, more important information with residents and better sharing of space.”

Prohibit shots within a radius of 30 degrees

According to figures from French office of biodiversity (OFB), the number of hunting accidents has been tend to decrease for twenty years. However, for the 2021-2022 season, the OFB has identified eighty hunting accidents (bodily injuries linked to the use of a hunting weapon), against eighty the previous season. Among them, eight fatal accidents, two of whom concerned victims who were not hunters.

Among the main tracks, taken from a recent Senate report , the creation of a aligned aligned aligned with the same requirements as for motorists. Alcoholism is however already an aggravating circumstance in the event of prosecution after a hunting accident. “I am not there to penalize the practitioners,” insisted M ^me couillard.

Another track: establishing half a day without hunting. If the government favors a local implementation, in peri -urban or very frequented forests, the Secretary of State “does not close the door to a national orientation” and specifies that doing the Sunday “is not a subject taboo. Everything is on the table “.

A mission of the Senate, formed in November 2021 following the death of a young man of 25 years killed by a hunting shot in front of his house, in the Lot, had rejected, in September, the idea of Establish at the national level one day without hunting.

Measures aimed at better informing walkers of the current hunting activities, possibly by a mobile application, or to prohibit shots within a radius of 30 degrees on the left and right of the hunters to avoid reaching a companion of hunting, are also under study.

/Media reports.