Hunters in France have triggered widespread anger after chasing a stag with their hounds into a person’s front garden – before coaxing the exhausted animal out and killing it while police watched.
The footage, taken by anti-hunting activists, shows hunters killing a tired but otherwise unhurt stag in a residential area near the outskirts of the forest of Compiègne, near Paris.
The tradition has not been subjected to the same type of political pressure that it has in the UK, but the footage has prompted Nicolas Hulot, France’s environment minister, to condemn the act as a ‘practice from another century’ that ‘prolongs the agony’ of the animal’.
The exhausted deer had taken refuge in the front garden of a house on the outskirts of the forest of Compiègne, near Paris
The film shot on October 21 shows a stag sitting in a front garden, with hunters climbing over the front gate to escort the animal away while police look on
The film shot on October 21 shows a stag sitting in a front garden, with hunters climbing over the front gate to escort the animal away. Worried children can be heard asking ‘they’re not going to kill it, are they?’
Armed police then move in to stop protesters getting to close, while the stag is shot off camera. They then drag away its carcass and clean up the mess after, reportedly allowing the dogs to eat the carcass as a reward for their hunt.
The footage has now been viewed thousands of times after going viral, and the village where the kill took place has received almost 180,000 signatures.
There has also been another petition calling for the end of the ‘barbaric and extremely cruel practice’, which has 97,000 signatures.
A group of hunters, one with what appears to be a gun on his back, loiter near the house where the deer is
The deer is shot off camera (left) but hunters are then filmed as they drag the carcass of the animal into a van (right)
A legal complaint against the hunt leader Alain Drach, the son of baroness Monique de Rothschild, has also been filed by the French society for the protection of animals, which carries a maximum penalty of two year in prison and a €30,000 fine.
The chairman of the group, Eric Gaftarnik, said: ‘To pursue an animal on horseback with dogs until it is exhausted and then kill it with a weapon for entertainment is a sadistic practice.’
French prime minister Edouard Philippe said: ‘All this suggests a societal debate is needed on this type of hunting, which is increasingly raising concern in public opinion.’
The French Society for Hunting with Hounds but has cancelled all hunts for the month and decided to suspend Mr Drach as master of the hounds until the end of the season.