An Ifop study shows that many French people do not feel safe when walking during hunting season. They also want the hunting season to be shortened, and the majority support a ban on hunting with hounds.
Commissioned by the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, the animal rights charity founded by the French actress, the online survey reveals that 62 percent of respondents do not feel safe when walking in nature during hunting season.
This proportion rises to 71 percent for women, and stands at 59 percent for people living in rural communities.
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Sunday ban
Many said they backed measures aimed at addressing this, with 82 percent in favour of making Sunday a hunting-free day – four percentage points higher than in the previous survey, published in 2021.
And 76 percent also support reducing the hunting season to a period between 1 October and 31 January – it currently runs from September until the end of February, generally.
"For me, hunting is completely obsolete, outdated. We're still killing little birds just for the pleasure of killing. It's disgusting. We live in a dangerous time, and we keep wanting to kill animals. It's scandalous," Bardot told French broadcaster BFMTV.
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Animal welfare
Regarding animal suffering, 72 percent of those surveyed support the ban on hunting with hounds.
Bardot said she was particularly horrified by an incident that took place on film director Luc Besson's property in Normandy last month, when a deer was killed by hunters who entered his property during a hunt with hounds.
She said she wants to see this hunting practice banned "now, not in a few years, I don’t have time to wait".
However, 67 percent of respondents believe that French politicians do not care about improving animal welfare.
There are more than 1 million active hunters in France, according to the National Hunters' Federation, and some 5 million people are in possession of a hunting licence.
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(with newswires)
