AFTER six fatal accidents since the opening of the hunting season, wildlife charity Aspas has called for tighter controls on hunters: including a no-shooting zone around houses.
In all, there have been 34 shooting accidents since September with half involving non-hunters. In the most recent a 50-year-old man out checking his beehives was shot and killed by a hunter out hunting wild boar near Clans in the Tinée valley in Alpes-Maritime
Mr Athanaze, president of ASPAS said that hunters too often just “let fly” and shot without getting a clear sight of what they were shooting at. People out enjoying the countryside were being injured and even killed by careless hunters. He called for tighter safeguards including a non-shooting zone around homes, “an annual health check for hunters - especially their vision – before they can renew their shooting licence, set maximum alcohol limits and start checks on hunters and, above all, a ban on Sunday hunts”.
At the weekend a bullet meant for a wild boar smashed through the windscreen of a car on the D913 near Fleury, Moselle; earlier in November a fisherman at Isle sur Tarn in Tarn was killed while he was repairing his boat; on October 31 a motorist in Thonon-les-Bains (Haute-Savoie) was shot in the head by a hunter who mistook him for a wild boar.
• In the most recent incident, in Alpes-Maritimes, the hunter has been arrested and charged with manslaughter after the death of the beekeeper. The president of the local hunt association has closed the district hunt season until September 2014.
- See more at: http://www.connexionfrance.com
Val says remember the story below and see why I was rightly frightened!
I have a brown coat, my donkey coat, covered in burrs and with pockets seemingly full of straw. I wore it this morning to go out down in the fields to repair the donkey fencing. I was working away bent over next to one of the woods which roll off down a steep valley, when I heard voices and then gunshots. With pounding heart I heard thuds behind me, turning I saw apples falling off a wild apple tree but I suddenly thought to a half blind man with a gun I could be taken for a sanglier. I ripped off my coat and was relieved to see I was wearing a red spotty blouse. The voices,gunshots and shouts moved away and I sat on a grassy hummock and heaved a sigh of relief. The sun came out leaving only the mist in the valley bottom and I continued taking out and replacing posts and electric line embedded in clumps of brambles and rose briars. All day I have been out there, but one field is done and the donkeys braying and cavorting are now in pastures new.
The donkeys may be cavorting but I certainly won't
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