It’s A Bad Day For Rabbits – Hunting Season

I awoke at a ridiculous hour this morning. It was just getting light and my dogs were not happy. Then I heard what was upsetting them. It has started – hunting season! Shotguns going off on the hill behind our house. As I write this it is 4:30pm the guns are still going off. Every time he hears a bang my poor dog, Oscar, goes off to hide again.

Yes, it is that time of year when those brave men go out every Sunday for the next month, and, armed only with a pack of Podenco hunting dogs and a shotgun, go head to head against the terrible, evil, ferocious man-eating rabbits of Fuerteventura. What heroes they are! Well they are if heroes also means arseholes.

The poor rabbits on this island are pathetic, thin creatures. What they manage to live on, particularly during the summer, is anyone’s guess. And I have no idea where they manage to find water. After they have struggled to survive the summer they are then rewarded by having these morons with guns trying to blast them to pieces throughout September. If you were to ask them they would “justify” it by saying their fathers, grandfathers and those before, all hunted so it is a tradition. Of course, that is complete bollocks, and is the standard excuse used by idiots who enjoy killing things for “sport”. Their grandfathers and great-grandfathers hunted to put meat on the table but that need is no longer there.

I always hope to hear the sirens of ambulances once they start, in the hope that their guns might backfire and blow their heads off. Unfortunately I have never heard of that happening. I live in hope though.

The only good thing about hunting season is that the poor hunting dogs get to leave their pens. The poor dogs spend over 10 months in tiny makeshift pens, in most cases, being poorly treated. Going out on a Sunday during hunting season is the only time they are ever free. The way they treat their dogs is another reason I hate the cruel morons.

Of course, I don’t just hate the hunters here in Fuerteventura. I hate all hunters, wherever they are.