Suppose you saw these headlines in an Irish newspaper: "Hunting, 45 deaths in 1997-98", and, in smaller print: "224 accidents were recorded". You would assume that there had been an unusual, no, a catastrophic number of men and women of the hunting crowd falling off their horses, being trampled under hooves or otherwise meeting a bizarre end in a ditch. In fact, as the headings are from a French newspaper, in which country la chase means almost exclusively shooting birds and beasts, the deaths and injuries came about by gunshot.
The National Office for Hunting (Office Nationale de la Chasse, ONC) says that the number of accidents is bigger than had been thought possible and the situation was very disquieting. Of the 223 accidents examined, 40 hunters shot themselves - eight mortally. It is during battues (when game is being driven from cover by beating bushes etc.) that most accidents occur, and more particularly when boar is the prey. The body which opposes hunting, whose president is an Academician, Theodore Monod, notes with satisfaction that finally a responsible enquiry has been carried out.
One of the main sporting magazines, Le Chasseur Francais, thinks that in another way, the French hunters have shot themselves in the foot. For, while the hunting folk organised a march on Paris, rather as the English hunters did on London, and were apparently able to coerce the French Parliament into extending the hunting season for shooting migratory birds, especially, beyond what Europe lays down, the editorial asks for how long the French will be able to hold out against the other countries. Are French parliamentarians unwilling to stand up to the gun lobby and are leaving it to Europe to put manners on the unruly hunters? For just a matter of a few weeks longer of seasonal shooting?
In so doing, says the leader, the hunters have been more marginalised and their image further tarnished. It all means, the writer concludes, that the anti-hunters could gain in popularity and the hunters be seen more than ever as "baddies."
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