A mountain biker was shot by a hunter on Sunday 21st October, 2018 in Mirepoix (Ariège), where a wild boar hunt was held. Seriously injured, he was hospitalised in Toulouse.
Another hunting accident in the region. It was eleven o’clock, Sunday, October 21, 2018, when a mountain biker was seriously wounded by the shot of a hunting weapon, while he was walking near the locality Mazerette, in the town of Mirepoix (Ariège). Except that a boar beaten was in the area.
Hospitalized in Toulouse
The 47-year-old mountain biker took a bullet at the shoulder, reports CODIS (Departmental Operational Fire and Rescue Center) from Ariège to Actu Toulouse. Seriously wounded, he had to be evacuated by the firefighters from Mirepoix to the University Hospital of Toulouse, but according to the firefighters, his vital prognosis is not engaged.
The intervention of a helicopter had been considered, but it could not take off because of a fog bank that reigned over the area.
In order to shed light on this case which could have been much more dramatic, the public prosecutor’s office of Foix (Ariège) asked for the opening of an investigation .
A week earlier, a mountain biker killed
This accident comes in a context of tensions around the hunt, with repeated accidents . On Saturday 13th October, 2018, a 34-year-old British mountain biker was shot dead in Montriond (Haute-Savoie) by a hunter.
The woman of a killed man challenges Macron
In the process , Melanie Lavy, a woman from Haute-Savoie, had published a moving message on Facebook to Emmanuel Macron, demanding that the head of state further security measures to control the hunt. His post had moved the whole of France.
She recalled that her husband, dad of two little girls, had died in 2015 with a bullet in the head, while they both ran “on marked trails”. She continued:
“We loved nature, we loved sport, we loved our freedom. That day a young hunter, blinded by his passion for hunting, shot without taking the time to identify his target (my husband was 1.83 m and we were 30 cm from each other), broke all the safety rules and killed my husband.”
And a member proposes … to ban mountain bikers!
Wednesday, October 17, also reacting to the drama arisen in Haute-Savoie, Alain Perea, MP (LREM) of the Aude had proposed to avoid accidents … to prohibit mountain biking during the period of hunting “which lasts four months He stressed.
La chasse ne dure que 4 mois par an. Pourquoi ne pas interdire le VTT pendant la Chasse ? #Chasse #RMCLive pic.twitter.com/LBnzyse8GK
— Alain Perea (@PereaAlain) 17 October 2018
Faced with the outcry aroused by his idea, the parliamentarian was then more or less back on his proposal, stating that he “regretted this tragic accident.”
Évidement je regrette ce tragique accident
Ce tweet maladroit,et dans tous les cas mal interprété, voulait exprimer que nous devons travailler ensemble à mieux partager nos territoires pour que chacun puisse vivre sa passion en toute sécurité plutôt que de se rejeter mutuellement https://t.co/x8sBTM9nwF— Alain Perea (@PereaAlain) 19 October 2018
115 victims and 13 deaths last winter
As recently explained the weekly Le Point, hunting accidents seem to multiply in the Hexagon. From 1st June 2017 to 31st May 2018, 113 accidents marred the hunting season in France.
According to the National Hunting and Wildlife Board, there were a total of 115 fatalities, including 13 deaths during the 2017-2018 season.
In Aveyron, a woman killed in her garden
Last season, another accident of the same kind had moved Occitanie . On this Saturday 14th October, 2017, in Taussac (Aveyron), the victim was squarely at home, in his garden. A hunter had shot through a hedgeand hit that woman in her garden with a shotgun. Aged 60, she was killed instantly. The hunter then explained that he thought he was reaching for a deer.
A petition to ban hunting on weekends
In parallel, a petition calling for the ban on weekend hunting was published on change.org. On Monday 22nd October, she had collected more than 155,000 signatures.
