Hunters join the farmers’ protest. What are their demands?

As we read in the position sent by Michał Budzyński, editor-in-chief of the Gunslab.pl portal, the hunting community identifies with the demands of protesting farmers and opposes the policy of the “Green Deal”. At the same time, he draws attention to the ideological changes imposed by the authorities, which concern not only agriculture, but also the hunting economy.

According to the authors of the position, the hunting community is concerned about the hunting restrictions announced by the management of the Ministry of Climate and Environment. In their opinion, the ideas brought forward by pro-animal organizations are not supported by reliable arguments or public consultations, and also go beyond the competences of the ministry itself.

The proposed proposals of the Ministry of Climate and Environment include changes to the almost complete ban on bird hunting, significant changes to restrictions on wild boar hunting, and even restrictions on the use of night vision and thermal imaging devices for hunting at night.

– What may be particularly disturbing is the fact that one of the demands communicated by Deputy Minister Dorozała is the desire to introduce, without any justification, the obligation to repeat medical examinations periodically for all legal gun owners in Poland, including sports shooters and collectors. Apart from the issue of the lack of competence of the Deputy Minister of Climate and Environment to proceed with changes to the Weapons and Ammunition Act, there is a serious concern about Poland’s security. Legal gun owners undoubtedly constitute the country’s natural military potential, and in the face of the real threat of the armed conflict spreading to Poland, they should be supported, not stigmatized, undermining trust in this environment – we read.

Dangerous consequences of planned changes in hunting law

The authors of the position point out that the policy of the current management of the ministry may lead to dangerous consequences such as:

• an increase in hunting damage to agricultural crops, an increase in the number of car accidents involving wild animals and an increase in the activity of wild animals also in cities;
• spreading dangerous diseases of wild animals and, consequently, farm animals, such as ASF, bird flu or rabies;
• reducing the effectiveness and, above all, the level of safety when hunting at night by limiting the use of optoelectronic devices;
• an increase in the level of import of products and limited access to healthy Polish food;
• significant reduction in research on wild animals, both by veterinary medicine and universities, most of whose research material comes from hunters;
• limiting the number of hunters and reducing the country’s natural defense potential in the face of the real threat of war with Russia.

What are the hunters’ demands?

Hunters also call for the transfer of all hunting activities to the supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, because it is with this ministry that the hunting economy has the most common areas. For many years, the hunting community has noticed the need for significant changes that will respond to many interested parties, especially farmers and inhabitants of rural areas.

Hunters’ demands include, above all, the abolition of barriers that prevent the effective implementation of statutory tasks and the development of hunting, such as:

• enabling dog training using wild animals in order to effectively combat diseases of wild animals, reduce the overpopulation of predators and increase the effectiveness of hunting by intensifying training and tests;
• introducing process improvements and regulations enabling faster obtaining hunting licenses and a significant increase in the active number of hunters, in order to increase the effectiveness of crop protection and regulation of given populations;
• removal of the unconstitutional ban on the participation of minors in hunting, limiting the parental rights of hunters;
• increasing the share of the State Treasury in compensating for damage caused by wild animals by accepting liability for damage caused by birds and game animals in areas where shooting is impossible due to the distance from residential buildings or other factual and legal restrictions, as well as in all other cases where hunters are prevented from legally hunting;
• abolition of the statutory ban on disturbing game, which prevents field trials of dogs, protection of own crops or inventory by driving without each time submitting an extensive application to the Marshal of the Voivodeship;
• enabling the use of optoelectronic sights both at night and during the day when hunting all species of game animals, in order to maximize the precision of target recognition and increase the safety of bystanders;
• enabling hunters to use handguns and melee weapons to increase safety when hunting and investigating gunshots
• enabling hunters to register rimfire weapons in order to increase the number of shooting training sessions;
• enabling hunting with bows and crossbows, especially in urbanized areas
• creation of a well-organized and adequately financed state service combating hunting, fishing and forest pests; performing tasks in the field of hunting management in areas excluded from hunting districts, professionally dealing with a full range of events involving wild animals of game and protected species;
  enabling hunting with the Polish Greyhound breed
• including the basic elements of hunting management principles in the core curriculum
• expanding the list of game species to include bird species that are not endangered or cause significant damage, especially those shot in neighboring countries: crane, cormorant, magpie, raven, gray crow, feral domestic pigeons, sicklebirds, other species of ducks, snipes and swans. Changing hunting seasons to effectively reduce damage to crops – spring shooting of geese, cranes and cormorants in regions affected by damage
• taking systemic actions to actually and effectively combat ASF using the state of current knowledge and assuming actual responsibility for combating infectious diseases by the Veterinary Inspection established for this purpose, and leaving the tasks of regulating numbers and reporting to hunters. The detection and collection of dead wild boars in areas affected by the disease should be carried out by professionally trained entities financed by the Inspection;
• developing a system facilitating access to locally harvested game for end users and small processing or catering establishments under EU regulations regarding local, territorially limited and traditional activities, with the level of sanitary regulations identical to the currently existing free transfer of game harvested for personal use;
• enabling reduction culling of animals in protected areas by local hunters and using the game thus obtained for their own use or for use in local catering establishments;
• formal regulation of the status of carcasses of game animals killed in accidents or killed pursuant to Art. 33 of the Animal Protection Act in case of necessity of immediate killing;
• introducing detailed monitoring of all organizations involved in public consultations when creating law, from sources of financing to the education or qualifications of members.

These are the grassroots demands of a group of hunters from many regions of the country.

The intention of the organizers of the hunting protests is to support local initiatives of farmers throughout the country. The goal is to restore optimal conditions for sustainable agriculture in Poland, which undoubtedly also includes hunting.

All presented demands and arguments show the importance of social involvement in shaping policy regarding hunting and agriculture. The future of these sectors is of great importance for the country’s sustainable development, food security, environmental protection and preservation of traditions.

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