2nd September 2012

September. A month to be feared in France for all those who love animals. Hunting here is an absolute scandal, and I can't understand why nothing is done about it. It starts every September and hunting with hounds continues until the end of March every year.  Even going for a walk is dangerous, especially in wooded grounds where hunters may lurk.  Even the 1982 law introducing a residential safety zone doesn't help much as hunters are allowed to shoot as long as they fire away from homes. So that's all right then!  Now, before all farmers reach for their pen and shout that they must protect their livestock from 'marauding' animals, why is it that appalling cruelty and undoubted schadenfreude on the part of hunters are condoned? Hunters regularly send their terriers into badger setts who then bite the badger from behind so they can't move whilst others dig down to unearth them before stabbing them or throwing them to the hounds.  There's a big difference between 'necessary' conservation and taking gleeful pleasure in causing bloody and painful suffering. Him indoors says he'd like to cause gleeful suffering to the hunters themselves.
No hope for anything new from Hollande. Owners of hunting lodges even get tax breaks from this government!  If you go out in the woods today, be very very scared...