Peretz orders urgent promotion of sport hunting ban

Environmental Protection Minister Amir Peretz advances bill that will prohibit recreational hunting in Israel.

By SHARON UDASIN
Severed deer head 370 (photo credit: Courtesy Nature and Parks Authority)
Severed deer head 370
(photo credit: Courtesy Nature and Parks Authority)
Environmental Protection Minister Amir Peretz ordered this week the advancement of a bill that would prohibit sport hunting in Israel.
A few years ago, the Environmental Protection Ministry first proposed a bill on the subject, but the matter got stuck in the Knesset after passing through its first reading. Peretz signed a request to apply the law of continuity in order to revive the bill, which will bring it before the Ministerial Committee for Legislation in the coming weeks, after which it can proceed to the Knesset for second and third readings.
The state allows sport hunting to occur each year from the beginning of September until the end of January on a variety of wild animals, such as ducks, coots and wild doves, the ministry said. There are 2,400 registered hunters in Israel.
“We will not tolerate crossing red lines in terms of hurting animals,” Peretz said. “We will use all means possible in order to protect animals, including outlawing sport hunting for recreational purposes. We are sending a message to all those vicious criminals who will stop at nothing to torment and harm helpless animals that we will not recoil and we will continue in our struggle for a just and moral protection of the animals in Israel.”
Calling upon the police to investigate a series of violent activities that have occurred against animals recently, Peretz said that such crimes are “shocking to anyone who sees himself as a moral being.”
Only Tuesday, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority reported four severed heads of deer as well as a head of a porcupine mounted on a fence next to a main highway in the North. Following these discoveries, INPA director-general Shaul Goldstein vowed to fight “this hunting phenomenon and preserve the nature of Israel.”
“I will not accept such a phenomenon, and I support the INPA in the important work it does against the illegal hunting of animals in Israel,” Peretz said.