A French man was gored to death by a deer during a hunt in the Compiegne forest area on the outskirts of Paris. The victim, Regis Levasseur, 62, was acting as the ‘beater,’ the member of the hunting party who helps corner the animal, when he was struck.
Levasseur, who was due to be married in the coming months, was unarmed at the time and died of internal bleeding before emergency services could reach the scene. Gur Harle, the president of the Oise Hunters Federation, told The Local: “Normally the animal would flee, but this time he decided to charge.
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"The antlers of the stag are like many knives piercing you, there is nothing you can do. This tragic accident reminds us that we do not play with a wild animal. There is an inherent risk with hunting," Hurle added.
The incident follows another in the region in recent weeks in which a deer was chased into the garden of a private house by hunting dogs in the town of Lacroix-Saint-Ouen on the edge of the Compiegne forest. A video of the deer being shot at close range was later posted to Facebook by the animal rights group Anti-Venerie Association.
Speaking in an interview with Courrier Picard, Alain Drach, the hunter who fired the fatal shot, said he has received hundreds of death threats since the incident.
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French Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot said the two incidents should prompt a review of the country’s hunting policy, saying he “wishes for a consultation on both the hunt and the fight against animal suffering [to be held]," according to the newspaper.
Last month, around 400 animal rights activists gathered to protest a mass celebrating St. Hubert, the patron saint of hunters, in the town of Saint-Jean-Aux-Bois in the Compiegne forest. Hunting is a popular sport in France with the Federation Nationale des Chasseurs, the national hunting body, boasting a membership of around 1.3 million people.