A petition calling for an immediate three year moratorium on hunting in France's fire-damaged forests has passed 300,000 signatures, as the country's 2026 wildfire season burns close to 120,000 hectares nationwide, according to franceinfo.
The petition, titled "Pas de fusils sur les cendres," was launched in mid-July by Bruno Valentin, who runs an animal shelter in the Cantal, as fires tore through the Gironde, Landes and the Fontainebleau forest, alongside blazes closer to home in the Var's Pontevès and Correns areas. "Animals escaped the flames by some miracle, exhausted, starving, deprived of their shelters and water sources," the petition reads. "Yet as soon as the season opens, the guns will once again ring out across this wounded land."
The campaign is one of several petitions pushing for a national rule on hunting in recently burned forest, arguing wildlife displaced or weakened by fire deserves a recovery period before hunting resumes. Whether the state adopts any such moratorium remains an open question, with hunting federations historically resistant to blanket restrictions on the practice.