Hunting in Spain has caused 57 deaths in 15 years: should minors have a driver’s license?

Advocated by a large group – there are at least 725,000 hunting licenses in Spain – and criticized by many, hunting has become one of the most controversial activities in our country. Its advocates see it as a traditional act that is lost and should be encouraged.They ensure that it helps protect nature, controls overpopulation and is a way to create wealth in rural areas, while also preventing damage and accidents caused by game animals (wild boar, roe deer and deer) in agriculture and on the road.

However, environmental groups and scientists believe that hunting promotes the opposite. The latest report by Ecologists in Action has made it clear that hunting does not serve to manage fauna or control overpopulation. In fact, a Supreme Court ruling states that “hunting and fishing are far from serving the purpose of exterminating cataloged species.” [como exóticas e invasoras]Rather, it determines its perpetuation, if not aggravating the existing status quo, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to abolish it”.

As psychologist Virginia Portillo argues, “the way hunting is carried out does not allow the species to be controlled for many reasons.” This expert, who is an expert in mental processes that affect violence, emphasizes that there is no discrimination between men and women during hunting activities, the population density is not measured before, during and after hunting, and “it is not checked whether it attacks or kills unauthorized species”.

Nor is it compatible with the conservation of biodiversity. Ends up with 20 million animals each year, according to the latest data provided by the Ministry of Agriculture. Bearing in mind that around 80% of the national territory – 46 million hectares of the more than 50 million land owned by Spain – forms part of a hunting ground, Ecologistas en Acción further states that this activity does not benefit the rural world, but prevents the possibility of making better use of it. , because such activity directly interferes with any other formula for enjoying the natural environment.

concern for minors

Based on these data, the international NGO Franz Weber Foundation has highlighted its concern: most new hunting strategy It includes the actions of the Ministry of Agriculture, which is in consultation, to encourage hunting in young people.. Specifically, with around 150 pages, the document details recommendations for the long-term continuity of hunting activity through the inclusion of youth and women in hunting and other activities in the industry, the promotion, dissemination and protection of associations. the cultural values ​​of hunting and the promotion of new opportunities for the professionalization of the sector.

In a few autonomous communities, they can get a license to shoot in just 14 years, supports the involvement of minors in activities where there is a risk of death or disability, according to critics of that activity.

In addition, since the powers are delegated to autonomous communities, In Cantabria and Castilla y León, incentives for minors (with reductions in licensing fees or total reductions) have been promoted. In the case of Cantabria, the regional government is considering authorizing children of all ages to accompany adults on hunts.

“If we normalize violence, sanction it, subsidize it from the State, If we give an open letter to carry weapons, to kill animals, the society we are building is a society of violence. and it cannot be anyone else”. This is how La Portilla sums up the situation, citing the existence of a large number of scientific studies confirming “the psychological level and brain architecture of affect in girls and boys exposed to situations of violence”. According to the expert, this act of violence “could cause severe trauma very similar to or equivalent to that suffered by victims of physical abuse.”

However, it is not only the psychological consequences that concern groups who oppose this practice. And in recent years, the victims of the hunt are also children. An example is the hunter or 13-year-old minor who ended the life of a four-year-old boy while accompanying his father at one of the shooting points on a hunt in Guillena (Seville). An accidental shot in Villalba de los Alcores (Valladolid). There have also been cases of minors as perpetrators of accidental or negligent shooting, such as the incident that took the life of a father during a raid in Azuaga (Badajoz).

Therefore, Portilla invites “urgent thinking”, taking into account the development status of the new regulation prepared by the state government: “The time has come to decide whether we are walking towards the society we want to live in and in which we live. they will live. future generations,” he says.

Hunters against “animal drift”

Hunters, for their part, Not only do they advocate that minors have direct access to hunting, but they also see new content in line with animal welfare enshrined in the new ESA and Baccalaureate curricula as a hazard.

As reported by the Spanish Hunting Federation a few days ago, the new regulations “repeat a new attack on the hunting industry and unprecedented suggestions of animal husbandryIt is protected by the Spanish Government”.

In ESO, the concept of ‘animal rights’ is included in the topic of Citizenship and Ethical Values, and in Biology and Geology the concept of ‘sensing assets’. This is real “It will not only make the practice of hunting impossible, but doom the rural world. through a change in the social model,” said Federation president Manuel Gallardo.

The Hunting Federation wants these issues not to be dealt with from an “animal point of view” and furthermore, “vital importance of hunting activity has been made known economically, socially, environmentally and culturally.

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