11974 Proposal to lower the minimum age for hunting to 16

I post this in the sports section because i believe that's what Italians view hunting as.

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/20/hunting-laws-italy]Fears that Italy's 'dangerous' hunting laws could get worse | Environment | guardian.co.uk[/url]

Bearing in mind that [I think] there is no minimum age in the UK - should anyone [apart from the birds] be worried?

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Category
Sports

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 03/27/2009 - 13:58

This issue was discussed at an Italian lunch in Umbria this week, where several of the men where hunters. For the record, they voiced their disapproval.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 03/27/2009 - 15:47

[quote=alan h;114232]I post this in the sports section because i believe that's what Italians view hunting as.

[URL="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/20/hunting-laws-italy"]Fears that Italy's 'dangerous' hunting laws could get worse | Environment | guardian.co.uk[/URL]

Bearing in mind that [I think] there is no minimum age in the UK - should anyone [apart from the birds] be worried?

.[/quote]

Thanks Alan - useful post.

Further evidence that Italy is indeed Italy and not for example England. Hunting around here is not so much a sport as (for many) a means of putting several tens of kilos of wild boar meat into the freezer - which in this crisi is becoming more and more important for survival. It's also part of the rural heritage. In practice, if they lower the age of legal hunting to 16, the biggest casualties will probably be amongst hunters.

I'm still pleased to be away from the Cotswolds (which is where we last lived)where one of our neighbours was "new money" landed gentry. Huge areas of his estate were set aside for pheasant farming and then on certain weekends landrover loads of "hedge fund managers" would be shipped in from London to blast six bells out of everything that flew past their noses. I think they paid up to £1000 a pop (this could be very inaccurate though). At the end of a "good day's shoot" hundreds of birds would be buried in holes in the ground because noone could be arsed to take them home and there was no local market for them.