The facts occurred this Saturday, October 1.
This Saturday, October 1, in the morning, a walker leaves for the forest of Sournia, to fetch mushrooms. He takes Ïoda, his dog, a 10-year-old Malinois. While they are in the woods, he hears a shot: “It was very strong. I saw my dog collapse. I screamed to prevent the shooting from continuing”. The dog dies almost instantly. By his testimony, the walker does not want to cast shame on the hunters, but alert: “It’s part of the hunting rules, we identify the target correctly before shooting. The person who shot thought my dog was a deer”.
Alerted, the other hunters of the hunt are not long in arriving: “They were really sorry for me. They took care of me right away, called the gendarmes themselves. I was pleasantly surprised, the president of the Rabouillet hunting association treated me with compassion”he explains.
Ïoda was killed while hunting.
Contacted, the president of the Pyrénées-Orientales hunting federation, Jean-Pierre Sanson deplores the incident: “It’s always regrettable. The federation obviously does not condone the act of the hunter, we strongly condemn it. The hunting instructions were given correctly. We cannot accept that this kind of thing happens. The cause of 90% of these accidents, it is the non-respect of the rule which says that one must formally identify before shooting. It is unforgivable”. According to the president of the federation, the hunting association in which the hunter in question was involved has already started a sanction action, by requesting the definitive suspension of her hunting license from the prefecture.
A complaint was filed by the owner of the dog this Monday, October 3 at the gendarmerie.
