ANN49

Hi, this is my first post on here and with the amount of questions I have it will not be my last!!!
I am really confused about the need or not for a shot gun licence in France, I understood that to hunt in france even on your own land you needed a hunting licence and that involves doing a written test in french, we are hoping to move to France in the next year or so can someone please clarify this for me?
Thanks Ann

treskillard

Some guns don't need to be registered, see here for the list and some pictures:
http://www.chasseurdefrance.com/regl...ame.php?page=8

There is a hunting test/licence with both a theory bit and a practical bit:

http://www.chasseurdefrance.com/reglementation_d.htm

You certainly don't have to own land to hunt here but you have to be licensed and probably be part of a hunting group to hunt if you don't own land.

Not my speciality although I'm trying to go out with the local hunt this winter.

Here's some information in English which seems decent:
http://www.chasseurdefrance.com/regl...ing_France.pdf

Let us know how it works out if it does.

artemis

Very sad to hear that you both like killing animals ...... double yuk

treskillard

Erm, I didn't notice saying anything about liking killing animals actually Artemis. I recall flying my cats from Greece to France while I hitch-hiked as I didn't have enough money to fly myself. One of them was called Artemis by the way, a beauty of a tricolour saved along with the other three from the degradations of Greek city life. And then we move to the difficult issue of hunting anyway. Cats hunt. Hunting territories when sufficiently controlled either by customary law or contemporary legal restrictions tend to be pretty rich in wildlife. And then this is as you have said a free forum and the original question is perfectly normal in a country where there are more hunters than ornithologists. Not forgetting that those hunters are often the charming people who keep those picturesque traditions alive that we all love so much like living from rather than just in the countryside. And then there is the question of feeding domestic animals in any case and where their food is sourced. I can't bear to be called a yuk artemis, really.

Oh yes I forgot.


T

artemis

Treskillard, it is obviously up to you what you do in your spare time, but I am ardently anti bloodsports. You say cats hunt, yes they do, but then they do not have any self control, but we do. There is nothing I can say to you to persuade you that this is a horrible activity, so I am not going to. However it is an extremely yukky and sadistic sport in my view. Perhaps we could say it is match point now

If you read my post of a while ago you will note that the very very first thing we noticed together as a family whilst visiting France was the complete absence of bird life. We counted about 25 birds on the way down to the South of France and yes I know you will say that this is 'normal', but then we have about 200 birds when the starlings come in to roost in our 70 foot by 120 foot garden. It truly was an eye opener for us and seemed unreal and I can only assume that they had all been shot, unfortunately. I have to say it does make the UK seem a nice place to live in comparison.

ANN49

Hello, I do not wish to get into an argument on the rights or wrongs of hunting but I would like to offer my own personal feelings.
1 We hunt to eat
2 We shoot to protect our free ranging livestock from predators
3 We do not eat intensively farmed meat or poultry
4 We keep free range chickens for eggs
We only have a smallholding but all our animals are housed and fed well.
Regards Ann

treskillard

"and I know you will say this is normal"
It is difficult to unravel that thing about there seeming to be less birds when in France/Greece/Italy etc. Certainly in terms of species this isn't the case (about double here) but then there is greater variety of habitat etc. Certainly birds are less used to feeding from bird tables and there seem to be less evident populations of what in Britain are considered garden birds. How much this is due to the British habit of feeding birds I can't say. When you dig your garden in rural or suburban France you do not get little Robins sitting on your garden fork. However I don't think that this seeming absence of birdlife is as a result of hunting. I think it is more related to the effects of climate and vegetation. The further south you move in Europe the less obvious the bird population is outside the mating season when their territorial displays make you think that the bird population has just exploded which it has. However, once this is over, the birds do tend to go underground so to speak. This may partly reflect an abundance of food? Certainly in terms of insect populations France seems to be doing pretty well. The longer summers also mean that that time of year when the bird population is less obvious lasts longer - you get it in the UK too - I know I am keen bird watcher. It is odd, but after I had spent many years living in France and then returned to the UK, I felt that Britain was short on wildlife. Anyhow.

I was talking to a friend recently who was bemoaning the lack of Partridge in the area I live. They weren't driven out by hunting however, they were driven out by the usual boring old factors of contemporary farming practices. The same goes for the quails. Anybody who didn't believe that hunting can have a detrimental effect on certain populations would be fooling themselves. But by the same token anybody who believes that hunting only has a detrimental effect on animal populations is fooling themselves.

So as you say: I have said all this is normal. What of course is also normal is that people identify and empathise with animals. It seems to have been a difficult lesson for me to learn that people who kill animals and people who eat animals don't necessarily dislike animals. The fact it can be the opposite. The world is full of such paradoxes.

Enough. Just don't call me yuk. Or ANN49.

Now Little Cat: he was a hero, do you know he used to actually chase and bring pen lids back? You could play with him like he was a dog!

artemis

I see Treskillard it is as clear as mud ....... people who hunt animals really like them but we are meant to see that hunting them is just a masterful disguise for actually liking them .... what a load of old TOSH..... perhaps it is just a way of justifying killing them ..... I really do hate hunting and hunters and I don't care what people think of me here, but someone has to stick up for the animals ..... how absolutely horrendous. Or as my OH just put it succinctly (he's a straight talking north Londoner) what a load of BS.

A few facts: in the UK there is a practice carried out by hunters which is called 'cubbing'. They steal fox cubs and put them in sacks. They then release them in front of the hounds. The hounds tear them to bits which trains them to hunt foxes. Did you know that the 'terrier men' nasty human specimens employed by hunt packs are often involved in illegal dog-fighting in the U.K. Lock your cats up. They will steal cats left out at night to train their dogs to kill. What pleasant people. You would not want to get mixed up with them. But of course they really LIKE ANIMALS don't they. Did you know that foxes are self-regulating. They are territorial which means they spread themselves out evenly and thus do not overpopulate an area. They eat or bury everything they kill, they do not kill for fun (but the hunters will try and persuade you differently). The hunts have kennels of hounds. Did you know that hunters kill their dogs when they reach 5 years old. They are of no further use because they are not fast enough. They don't do it humanely but just put a bullet through the dog's brain behind a shed and chuck the body in a bin (fact). Anyway I am off my soap box now and hope that I have at least thrown some light on this so-called sport. Sorry moderators for going on ..... but it is nice to have the other side to stories about bloodsports.

ANN49

Well I never expected one query could cause such emotion, but please before you decide you hate a person you have never met ,and I don't care either way, you really should get your facts right. I have seen first hand the devastation a fox can do to chickens and ducks merrily basking in the sun, it is not pretty,and I can assure you that the innocent fox just looking to feed is a total fallacy, the fox goes into a frenzy and kills anything it can and much more than it could eat or carry away and bury. I have this year had 27 hens slaughtered by a fox in one afternoon so please do not tell me it was only hungry. I too hate dog fighting, I certainly do not agree with all hunting activities. I have a lovely little lakeland terrier but so does the lady in the village who by the way is in her 70,s so is everyone with a terrier dog to be classed as a person who would fight dogs. You really have no right to generalize on a persons character just because you do not agree with one aspect of their life. I think the removal of your rose tinted glasses and a look at the real world would help you perhaps be more tolerant of people and things you have no knowledge or experience off.
Ann

treskillard

Dearest Artemis,
The Godess of Hunting no less...
A further oddity is that your views are the mainstream these days! You are not voicing a minority opinion that struggles to get heard! It's well known and of course everything you have written is correct and laudable and well put and right. It is just that there is more out there than this. That's all. Being a straight talking north londoner myself I do you the respect of assuming you are vegetarian at the least and vegan at the best? And your OH too I assume?

Surely the moderators don't mind this exchange do you think? It's all the best possible taste!

jdr

No problems, everyone has their own opinions and can show them as long as its done within......

Site Rules

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L'Acajou

Just wanted to say thanks for asking the question about gun licences, we are also looking into this. For the record we are beef farmers and although we are not anti-hunting (that would be hypocritical) we have refused to continue the chasse we inherited beyond the first year. A couple of calves were found mysteriously dead, we didn't think at the time to check for bullet holes... so now we have a reserve with deer etc.
We are over-run with coypu though and they are a big problem as they undermine the watercourses, we lose trees and have had a few cattle stuck in the mud caused by the caving in they cause - the gendarmes were offering a helicopter to pull the cows out!

We are told some people make paté from the coypu , as they are vegetarian the meat is OK. I think I'll pass on that one.....

artemis

Anne49, I did say I did not expect anybody to stop slaughtering animals just because of my post. It is entirely up to people to decide what hobby they do in their spare time. I was just making sure that everybody knows the FACTS about hunters and their rather nasty pastime. I don't hate anyone on this particular thread and I have no say in what anyone does or does not do, but I wanted just to point out the FACTS about fox hunting, which I have done and admirably if I say so myself. If I see a post about buying guns it will bring out the animal rights in me, and always will. BY THE WAY I AM RIGHT ABOUT FOXES, GIVEN THAT IT SAW YOUR 27 CHICKENS IT DID INDEED INTEND TO EAT THEM ALL AND AS YOU ARE A FARMER I WONDER WHY I AS A TEACHER KNOW THIS FACT AND YOU DO NOT? BUT YOU SAY THAT I DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT. MAY I SUGGEST YOU CONTACT THE LEAGUE AGAINST CRUEL SPORTS AND ASK THEM WHETHER I AM RIGHT. YOU WILL FIND THAT I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG!
You have to expect a certain amount of flak by coming onto this forum and asking about gun licences in order to HUNT in France. And YES YES YES foxes will kill all your chickens and given the chance will BURY THEM ALL to eat at a later date. FACT. Stronger chicken wire is needed if you ask me and hardly the foxes fault after all he is doing what comes naturally. I hope he had a good meal. p.s. my OH has just pointed out that there may be no point in you moving to France as there don't seem to be any animals left to kill, but he suggests you lie in wait by a nearby dustbin for one of myriad roaming dogs that seem to proliferate!

ANN49

Artemis, you have indeed let yourself down, how can you say you are an animal lover and then take pleasure in the horrendous death of innocent poultry. We are not farmers, we keep chickens for eggs and two goats for milk, we allow our animals to free range and have a natural life and as I have already said we only kill for food but unlike the fox we kill quickly and only what we need.
I did not expect this sort of attack simply for asking about gun licence laws in france

treskillard

I think there are quite alot of wild animals in France? Don't you (general question to a silent forum)? Really, aside the whole hunting issue, the place isn't that bad!

And what about that vegetarian/vegan issue by the way? I tend to vere that way myself when considering these matters more than being concerned with hunting. I see the acceptance of eating 'humanely' killed animals yet despising animals killed for 'pleasure' as essentially contradictory and a result of the puritan urge. Now I like a good Puritan myself. But they are contradictory souls aren't they?