Please restore my Love affair.

[TC]

I have lived in France now for 5 years and feel my love affair with the country was spoiled somewhat this morning. Before I start I am not an avid anti hunter, in fact I have been to the local hunt dinner but this morning took the biscuit.

I live just outside the village of St Mathieu in the Haute Vienne and we have had a celebrity deer for the last few weeks. This animal has adopted a small herd of dairy cows and become almost tame. The local community have watched with interest as it has become part of the community. Well you can probably guess where this is going. The local head of the Chasse decided it wasnt natural so two weeks ago had it chased off by dogs, quite reserved I think. As predicted it returned a week later. Well this morning by decree of some faceless beauracrat it was decreed because of public safety (a few cars a day stopping on a quiet lane to look) it had to be shot. All done at an early hour and no obvious publication of said order. The animal was virtually domesticated and just stood in the middle of the field like a sittting duck. Now I have to laugh at the public safety bit as we are forbidden all winter from taking walks in the woods because of idiots with guns, and with the hunting season a week or so finished they just cannot end their blood lust. I am absolutely gutted and have had my love affair with my adopted home immensely soured.

Please dont reply telling me it is part of local culture etc, as I said I am not anti hunt, I am however anti IDIOT.

[raindog]

Welcome to La France Profonde.

I can't speak for other regions but the "hunters" where I live all seem to be brainless thugs who know very little about the natural world.

[TWINKLE]

It is so frustrating and most hunters in my region also seem heartless and devoid of any feeling even towards human beings.  I try to ignore it but then I hear a story like this and my blood boils and I want to smash their heads together - but that won't change anything.

My motto for this lot?  What goes around, comes around.

[inkflo]

I was really sorry to hear this story.

I do not like hunting, but in France it is a near religion & if people hunt to eat then so be it.

This just seems like bloodlust for the sake of it though and I'm sure that there are many French residents who are just as upset over this incident.

As for your love of France, I don't think you should let the chasse taint it as there are many more kind & caring people than there are numbskulls like this. Every country has them I'm afraid to say.

[Pads]

TC I would feel exactly the same as you , but sadley its not only france where this happens, I live in rural Cornwall and have a family of Deers living in my field, Im worried sick about them as maybe 3 times a year we get the local tits in red coats on horse back who pretend they are only out on scent runs but I have seen them fox and deer hunting , sadley I dont have my camera at the right time, although if I was seen taken pictures I know I would be harassed as they are not a nice bunch of people. I have told them they are not allowed on my field , but this dosnt stop them as my friend has also told them the same thing and they have been caught on her land about 4 times.

I strongley beleive that people like that will always get what is due to them one day, it may not be today or tomorrow , but what goes around comes around !!

For every one person like them there are people like the ladies on the animal threads here that are saving animals, and france does have many other good things to balance out the bad things, its your deer today but all over the world they are many more horiffic things happening to animals everyday [:(] We just all have to do our bit to save what we can.!!       

[TC]

Many thanks for your comments.

 

As I said in my post I live in rural France and abide by French cultural mantras etc, however I am incensed at what happened this morning and feel that one should be able to at the very least offer some heartfelt opposition. Is there any advice on how I can make a formal complaint via authorities that may at least pay lip service to my feelings.

I am not trying to ban hunting, I think this is impossible but what happened this morning was just plain sick. I know the farmer who's land the animal was on had grown quite attached and was probably against it too, but he probably had no say.

 

Once again thanks for the comments. I have calmed down a bit now but wish I had known this morning as I would definately gone and made a nuisance of myself.

 

[Gluestick]

Lucky you don't still live in the UK, then, TC.

Deffra have recently announced that culling of badgers - a protected species -  can begin again, as they "Spread Bovine TB".

Perhaps in the same vein, the Home Office ought to allow culling of immigrants from Third World states, as they are the culprits bringing the current epidemic of TB into the UK! (and before the PC mob attack me, that was satire!)

I can only imagine that your mayor probably fancies some venison, this weekend.

 

[Will]

GS, I liked your suggestion about infected immigrants, and I suspect certain other users might like it even better.

However, one only has to look at the fact that France, and several other European countries where badgers are not protected, have a far lower incidence of bovine TB. I know that there are many other factors that come into play, primarily intensive farming methods, so no single cause can be blamed for the spread of TB. There is no shortage of badgers in France, and they can happily and healthily live alongside cattle. But rather than badgers and their setts being protected, farmers are legally permitted to destroy suspected infected animals and, most importantly, infected setts. Once a sett is contaminated with TB then it will, apparently, infect all its occupants, even future ones.

In reality not a lot of culling is needed - certainly not the genocide feared by the British wildlife lobby. Badgers are very territorial and aggressive animals and this, alongside natural selection, can assist nature to ensure that only the healthy survive.

[Gluestick]

Many thanks for that info, Will. Most interesting.

I just have a soft spot for Mr Brock: magnificant animal and again, a threatened species in Britain.

I also feel pretty strongly about TB, since as a kid at grammar school in the early 50s, I experienced first hand the problem. Two masters were eventually identified as carriers. Both were cured and returned to work. Meanwhile, all 850 odd boys and all the staff had to undergo tests and was one of the unlucky ones who had to have the BCG vaccination and six months chest screening for some years afterwards.

With increasing varieties of wide spectrum antibiotics and the BCG vaccination, Koch's Bacillus, the causer, was all but beaten in the UK.

Now, all types of TB are almost at epidemic level: treament at home with antibiotics was a normal regime for the few cases, however, as with so many diseases, antibiotic-resistant TBs are growing most worryingly.

Yet our idiot government allow non-health screened immigration from states where TB is endemic.

I accept that bovine TB can be transmuted into the human form mainly spread by milk: but that's one of the reasons milk in the UK is all pasturised.

I would hope that unlike before, where farmers saw all badgers as fair game, perhaps this time round selective culling of diseased animals and disinfection of their setts will occur, as you say.

Apparently, badgers use setts for hundreds of years if possible (not sure if this is apocryphal) and if so, then what you said makes much sense.