"Hunters" massacre over 500 animals

[LadyTevar]

BBC News
Portugal outrage after Spanish hunters massacre 500 wild animals

Portuguese officials have expressed outrage at the massacre of more than 500 deer and wild boar in a hunting zone in the centre of the country.

Environment Minister João Fernandes said the killing by 16 Spanish hunters was "vile" and an "environmental crime" that should be prosecuted.

Pictures of the slaughter were shared on social media.

Hunting individual animals is allowed but in this incident most of the zone's deer population are said to have died.

The killing is thought to have taken place on a farm in the Torrebela tourist hunting zone, near Azambuja, about 40km (24 miles) from the Portuguese capital Lisbon on 17 and 18 December.

The 1,100ha (2,700-acre) farm is described as being walled in, meaning that the 540 animals had no means of escape from their killers.

The Environment Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that "the reports and news about the indiscriminate slaughter of animals... have nothing to do with hunting, understood as a practice that can contribute to the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystems".

SIXTEEN HUNTERS. Kill 540 Animals. That's 33-34 animals PER HUNTER.
That's not hunting, that's massive slaughter on the scale of gunmen shooting buffalo out of train windows and leaving them to rot.

I want to beat the shit out of these murderous bastards for giving REAL HUNTERS a bad name.

[Formless]

I would change the title from "hunters" in quotation marks to simply poachers, no need for quotation marks since that is absolutely what this is.

[LadyTevar]

I would change the title from "hunters" in quotation marks to simply poachers, no need for quotation marks since that is absolutely what this is.

Poachers are illegal. These assholes paid to go to the hunting farm and slaughter animals who couldn't escape.

[Zaune]

The fuck did they use, a machine gun in the back of a technical?

[Gandalf]

I would change the title from "hunters" in quotation marks to simply poachers, no need for quotation marks since that is absolutely what this is.

Poachers are illegal. These assholes paid to go to the hunting farm and slaughter animals who couldn't escape.

So, hunting without the usual rules that make it palatable?

[GuppyShark]

" Torrebela tourist hunting zone "

Environment Minister, I think I've found the root of the problem. Your government has made it profitable to do this, so it is being done.

[LadyTevar]

I would change the title from "hunters" in quotation marks to simply poachers, no need for quotation marks since that is absolutely what this is.

Poachers are illegal. These assholes paid to go to the hunting farm and slaughter animals who couldn't escape.

So, hunting without the usual rules that make it palatable?

There's Bag Limits for a reason. 3 Deer will fill a freezer and feed a family for the winter. What the fuck do you do with 33 animals?

[Batman]

The same you do with scores of bisons you shot from the train and then left to rot-brag about it

[Solauren]

Deep Freeze them, ship them home, and then sell them?

[Formless]

See, I don't know about Portugal, but in the United States, killing animals in a confined area is in fact the crime of poaching. Moreover, while it isn't considered poaching per-say, killing more animals than you are allotted on your hunters license is definitely illegal and will get you fined on a per-animal basis (and 33 animals per hunter would add up fast!). Moreover, several other hunting techniques are also classified as poaching because they are unsporting, inhumane, or harmful to the environment (like trapping, using underpowered guns with non-expanding bullets, using poison, machine guns, and explosives, baiting, and hunting from a moving vehicle without a specialty license only issued to people with disabilities). And personally, I agree with these laws on both moral grounds as well as in consideration of sustainability, so even though this is a different country we're talking about, I see no reason to beat around the bush and not call these assholes poachers. That is precisely what they are, and the fact that they depleted the herd so much shows why those laws exist here.

edit:

Deep Freeze them, ship them home, and then sell them?

Would also be illegal in the US on a normal deer hunting license. The same is probably true in most other countries.

[Agent Fisher]

If you're a hunter and want to shoot as many creatures as you want, there is already a great option for it. Go to Texas and go hog hunting. You can do it on the ground, from vehicles, from helicopters. They're listed as a vermin species and you can cull as many as you want cause there's never enough hunting of them to shrink the population. This shit is just... Like, I get the idea of a 'hunting area' where Deer are kept, bred and there for being hunted, allowing the wild populations to be unmolested and grow, but just wiping out the majority of the population in the hunting area is... The hunter in me just finds this abhorrent. The last time I went out deer hunting, I spent a full day and didn't fire a shot cause I couldn't find a buck big enough to be worth taking.

[Solauren]

Deep Freeze them, ship them home, and then sell them?

Would also be illegal in the US on a normal deer hunting license. The same is probably true in most other countries.

True. And of course (sarcasm) No one has ever successfully smuggled illegal product across borders before (/sarcasm)

If the deer were pre-sold off, all they'd have to do is freeze them, package them, and mail them out. All you need is a few bribed officials looking the other way for a few hours to do it.

[LadyTevar]

True. And of course (sarcasm) No one has ever successfully smuggled illegal product across borders before (/sarcasm)

If the deer were pre-sold off, all they'd have to do is freeze them, package them, and mail them out. All you need is a few bribed officials looking the other way for a few hours to do it.

That's the other thing. THEY DIDN'T TAKE ANY OF THE BEASTS WITH THEM.
The article has pictures of the Portuguese Officials standing over the slain deer. The Hunters killed 504 animals not for food, not for trophies. Just to kill.

[Solauren]

Ah. Didn't realize that.

Then again, it's possible they arranged things, and then the local to the reserve officials went 'Oh HELL NO' to them taking them.

[LadyTevar]

Ah. Didn't realize that.

Then again, it's possible they arranged things, and then the local to the reserve officials went 'Oh HELL NO' to them taking them.

I don't see anything like that in the Article. Do you?

[Solauren]

No.

However, I'm just putting out a theory as to why you'd do something like that besides just being a group of rampaging psychopaths.

[LadyTevar]

No.

However, I'm just putting out a theory as to why you'd do something like that besides just being a group of rampaging psychopaths.

You're being hopeful that they weren't rampaging psychopaths, when everything is pointing to rampaging murderous psychopaths.

[Gandalf]

Poachers are illegal. These assholes paid to go to the hunting farm and slaughter animals who couldn't escape.

So, hunting without the usual rules that make it palatable?

There's Bag Limits for a reason. 3 Deer will fill a freezer and feed a family for the winter. What the fuck do you do with 33 animals?

Feed many families.

Or maybe it's some whole bonding thing to which people seem attached.

[GuppyShark]

https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/20 ... mals/57439

=The ICNF will immediately suspend the Torrebela Tourist Hunting Zone licence (No. 2491-ICNF), following the slaughter of 540 animals on that surrounded farm. The investigations carried out by the ICNF made it possible to gather strong evidence of non-compliance by the concessionaire of the hunting area, particularly those relating to the promotion and sustainable management of fauna, among other failures", says statement issued by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Action."