Hunters

With around 850,000 hunters, France is the number one country in Europe with the most hunters.

The number claimed by the National Hunting Federation (FNC) in the media is vastly superior, as it takes into account the number of hunting permits, not the number of practitioners, the latter which take multiple permits to be able to hunt in various departments.

Each year, the number of hunters decreases: it accounted for 2,5 million people in 1970 to our current 850,000 individuals. These hunters are part of 80,000 hunting societies, which equates to 840 per department and over two per municipality.

The traditional image of the stereotypical hunter: a farmer going to hunt on Sundays, only account for 10% of hunters. As young people are not attracted to the act of killing animals, the age demographics are ever-increasing, the average age currently being between 45 and 54 years old, while 40% are over 54 years old, less than 5% are less than 25 years old and 8% are aged between 25 and 34 years old (source CSA 2006).

The claimed official reasons to hunt are the contact with nature (99%), conviviality (93% – an opinion hikers, strollers, bikers and nature enthusiasts do not share) and the maintenance of territories (89%). Thusly, one can wonder why weapons are needed.

As we know, hunting is not necessary and has become a recreational activity. The need or the pull to distract oneself by killing living beings gives pause and does not seem like an acceptable pastime in our modern societies.

As we have become aware of ecological imperatives and the need to respect life, hunting has become anachronistic. Therefore, it seems logical that its numbers are diminishing drastically, despite all of hunters’ efforts to remain relevant and recruit new members.

France is probably one of the only countries to have had giant pro-hunting posters in the Parisian metro and regular ads broadcasted on wide audience television channels in recent years at peak viewing hours. The interesting aspect is that the world view of this category of the population is so estranged from the general population that most of their ads have remained completely misunderstood and missed their target. Incidentally, influencers and comedians have not missed the opportunity to make clever parodies.

Nevertheless, lets not wait for hunting to naturally disappear out of a lack of members, since fauna deserves to be left alone immediately. Let us defend it against this lethal activity and seek its abolishment.