The Executive Power authorized through a decree (No.138) night hunting and expanded the territory where the activity can be practiced, which reaches closer to towns and schools. This initiative, which has the signature of the President, Luis Lacalle Pou, also has the support of the Ministries of Environment, Livestock and Tourism. Given this, the president of the NGO Animal Ethical Treatment, Rita Rodríguez, in an interview with Radio La R 1410 am, stated that this decree “goes against many things, including the National Party government program.”
Rodríguez recalled that it is explicit that hunting encourages packs and it is necessary to try to regulate the activity more strictly. However, “on the contrary, the first thing the Government does is to issue a decree that goes against this.”
The decree is signed by the Presidency and three Ministries, one of them being Environment. In this sense, from the NGO and taking into account that this portfolio was born in the current administration through the LUC, they point out that being one of its first manifestations, “it gives a questionable signal”.
“Hunting is indeed an activity that is going backwards in the world,” said Rodríguez.
A problem that has been installed for years
Regarding the reasons why the Decree could have arisen, referring to pest control, he explained that “hunting is not efficient, it has existed for years and we continue to have the same or more problems.” In this sense, he clarified that if the production losses by animals were relevant «previous studies would have already been carried out. Until now there are none.”
No natural predator kills the largest and strongest specimen, but rather the opposite. They do a genetic cleaning that gives an ecological balance. “The human does not do that, they play issues of virility, highly masculinized and with violence,” he added.
Faced with a problem installed in Uruguay such as wild boar for crops, the director of Animal Ethical Treatment reported that “it did not arrive two years ago” and that “producers started with that context and there are losses that one has to contemplate when to evaluate a business. From there strategies for population control are generated, which is undoubtedly necessary, but the solution is to kill them? No. There are other alternatives to follow that they are not considering, such as sterilization.
In this context, he stated that the Ecological Tourism that the country promotes through Uruguay Natural is a sector concerned because the Hunting Tourism that was created, “breaks with the principles of the other.”
The NGO filed an appeal for revocation and made a request for reports to the Ministry of Environment, Tourism and Livestock. Where the response they obtained confirms that no prior study was done to carry out the night hunting decree. So what was it based on? What were the previous steps to get to this? There is no response to this, the hunters’ associations publicly reported that it is a proposal that the President sent and from there he almost textilely signed it and sent it down to the Ministry, but it does not respond to an impact study or a social need,” he questioned. .
Social problems and personal decisions
Rodríguez stated that the decree encourages packs, generating problems at a social and discursive level. This expands its spaces and in a schedule that makes it “more harmful, for everything that going hunting implies.” In turn, “it not only affects the animals that are killed in the hunt and the dog itself, which faces a fight, it also affects native species because they do not contemplate distinction.”
Given these reasons, he demanded that: “The minimum is that they give good reasons and they do not exist.” Adding that the decree “responds to an interpretation of Lacalle Pou as the hunter that he is, that it is an activity that must be encouraged.”
“It also makes us think that government decisions are being made due to personal inclinations,” he said.
Being a highly questioned NGO, it expressed that night hunting is an activity that “for the animal is cruel and we have elements to justify that hunting with dogs should be prohibited. It goes against current laws and animal protection. What we want to advance as a society is to have a less violent one.”
The human is also plague
«When we think of pests, we categorize certain animals, which leave their ecological niches, occupy other territories and cause great damage to the environment and other species. Characteristics that we humans present: what we do with the planet is incredibly harmful. Do we qualify as pests? ”, Rodríguez invited to reflect.
Given this, he argued that we must “seek alternatives” to coexist with other species and that this be the “least harmful to all.”
«If we think about the idea that this is harmful and I kill him, that idea has a strong social impact. You have to think about it without distinction of species », he expressed referring to the naturalization of violence, which« removes barriers when using it.
The night hunting decree not only puts lives at risk, but the NGO reports that it also causes noise pollution: “It was not considered that there are children in a school who are going to have to normalize the noise of gunshots. The decree makes us naturalize something that always generated rejection in us.
«I believe in the concept of coexistence: the effort is not to make the other an object that does what I want it to do. This applies to all animals, including us », he concluded.
