Latest news with #hunter
Daily Mail
19-05-2025
- Daily Mail
Day our greatest big game hunter came face-to-face with 'the Maneater of Chowgarh'... and was only saved by his trusty Rigby rifle: ROBERT HARDMAN
On the afternoon of April 11, 1930, the celebrated British big-game hunter Jim Corbett nearly met his maker. He was painstakingly following a trail through the Agar forest in northern India in pursuit of a tigress which had already consumed 64 people. The terrified locals were pinning their hopes on Corbett.
BBC News
06-05-2025
- BBC News
Pyranees brown bear: French hunter given suspended sentence for kill
French hunter given suspended sentence for killing protected bear The bear, nicknamed Caramelles, has been preserved and is now on display at the Toulouse Natural History Museum The 150kg female bear, nicknamed Caramelles, has since been preserved by a taxidermist and is on display at the Toulouse Natural History Museum. Fifteen other hunters were also fined and must collectively pay more than €60,000 (£51,000) in damages to environmental associations that had filed a civil suit against them. The man said he had "no other option" but to open fire on the brown bear when it attacked him during a boar-hunt in 2021. An 81-year-old hunter in France has been fined and handed a four-month suspended jail sentence for killing an endangered bear in the Pyrenees mountains. The Foix Criminal Court heard that the group were boar-hunting in the Pyrenees, the mountain range that separates southern France and Spain, when two bear cubs emerged. Shortly afterwards their mother appeared, charging at the man and dragging him several metres, before he shot and killed the animal. "She grabbed my left thigh, I panicked and fired a shot. She backed away growling, she went around me and bit my right calf, I fell, she was eating my leg," he told the court. "I reloaded my rifle and fired." The shooting happened in the Mont Valier nature reserve near the village of Seix, Ariège. Prosecutors said they should not have been there in the first place, because it was 1,300ft (396m) outside an authorised hunting area. But the defence lawyer for 14 of the hunters, Fanny Campagne, criticised "the lack of signs indicating that hunting was prohibited". The shooter was fined €750, his rifle has been confiscated and his hunting licence revoked. In a statement, bear-preservation association Pays de l'ours said the verdict "seems justified". "All the hunters were found guilty, which is the most important thing for us," the association's president, Sabine Matraire, was quoted as saying in Le Monde. "We hope that this ruling will be followed by a raising of awareness among the hunting community," she added. Brown bear populations saw a sharp decline in the Pyrenees, with only about 70 left in 1954, according to the region's tourism board. But numbers have slowly climbed up since 1990s when three bears were brought over from Slovenia as part of a reintroduction programme. In 2024, the French Office for Biodiversity estimated that the mountain range is now home to about 96 bears.
The Guardian
06-05-2025
- The Guardian
French hunter, 81, avoids jail after killing endangered female bear in Pyrenees
An 81-year-old French hunter has avoided jail after killing an endangered female bear that had attacked him in the Pyrenees mountains in 2021, in an incident that sparked fierce criticism from environmental associations. The defendant, who said he had no choice but to open fire when a brown bear attacked him while he was boar-hunting in the mountain range separating France and Spain, was given a four-month suspended jail sentence. The court also fined 15 other defendants who participated in the hunt several hundred euros and temporarily revoked the hunting licences of two of them. In addition, all 16 defendants will have to collectively pay more than 60,000 euros ($68,000) to the environmental associations that brought the civil suit. During the March trial in Foix in southern France, the prosecution said that the main defendant and 15 other hunters should not have been in the Mont Valier nature reserve in the first place. Defence lawyer Charles Lagier had argued that all the defendants should be acquitted, saying that the hunter killed the bear because he had 'no other option'. On 20 November 2021, two bear cubs emerged from the woods in front of the hunter. Then their mother appeared, charging at the man and dragging him for several metres. He shot and killed the animal. According to the investigation, the bear – nicknamed Caramelles – was killed 400 metres (1,300 feet) outside an authorised hunting area. When the cubs emerged, 'I looked at them with admiration,' the defendant said during the trial. 'I made myself very small. Then the mother saw me. Our eyes met, she charged.' He said he had no choice but to shoot. 'She grabbed my left thigh, I panicked and fired a shot. She backed away growling, she went around me and bit my right calf, I fell, she was eating my leg,' he added. 'I reloaded my rifle and fired.' The defendant 'killed a bear because he had no other option; it was necessity. This does not call for criminal charges,' defence lawyer Charles Lagier argued during the trial. But Alice Terrasse, the lawyer representing several environmental associations at the trial, called for all 16 hunters to be convicted and requested a bear be introduced 'to compensate for Caramelles' death'. Such an operation would cost 100,000 euros ($113,000), Terrasse said in March. Animal rights activists view bears as integral to maintaining a fragile mountain ecosystem under threat from human activity and climate change. Bears had nearly disappeared from the mountain range before France began a reintroduction programme in the 1990s, importing them from Slovenia. France's biodiversity office estimates the Pyrenees are home to between 97 and 127 bears. The presence of the predator has led to increasing tensions with farmers because of the threat they pose to their livestock. But for Alain Reynes of the bear-preservation association Pays de L'Ours, this case offers an opportunity to 'help move forward the debate on how hunting and bears can coexist'.
