The campaign against the foxhunters in Britain is by no means over. A Labour backbencher challenged the Prime Minister the other day to honour his pledge to stamp out "the despicable and barbaric practice of hunting animals with dogs". We will see. Meantime, hunting in France and Italy is also under scrutiny, but, in this case, hunting is done with guns - la chasse in France. An article in Europ magazine looks back on the huge invasion of Paris earlier this year by 150,000 protesters, who were expressing dissent from France's agreement to the European Directive on Birds: that is, chiefly, France's part in shooting migratory birds before they can mate and reproduce. A compromise was reached by cutting the season for such shooting by one month.
Hunters in France keep insisting on their hard-won rights, dating back to the French Revolution, when the hunting privileges of the aristocracy were thrown open to the masses. The General Secretary of the anti-hunting ecologist group passed to the writer of the article some photographs. One showed a thrush: "A protected species in northern Europe. Fourteen million of them are hunted each year here in France". (Hunted successfully, it is presumed, i.e. shot.) She went on: "It was Mitterrand's favourite dish. And this one, it is a bunting", which, she declared, was a favourite with another politician.
But Italy has the highest density of hunters in Europe per square kilometre, says the same spokeswoman, "with 150 million migratory birds being shot there." (Is it possible?) Tuscany is a part of Italy perhaps known to many from this country. The pattern of game is different from ours. For, in each year 30,000 boars are killed - a lot of meat. Of pheasants there are only 700 killed and a mere 200 hares. Behind this shooting scene there is a huge network of dog-training fields, hunters' associations, specialist shops and "a vast literature" on the subject.
Tuscany has a law which entrusts hunters, environmentalists and farmers to the management of hunting areas. They must jointly balance the needs of both wildlife and the hunters. (What a job.) Italy, says a spokesman, is the only country with these natural animal breeding areas. He talks of their love of animals. The writer asks if he feels sorry for them when hunted. "I would be lying if I said yes". From a long article by Elena Gomez Carrascal of Spain, a student at Journalistes en Europe, that wonderful organisation in Paris. Y