Fri 25 December 2020:
Portugal has opened an investigation into a hunting expedition in which 16 Spanish hunters shot down 540 animals mostly deer and wild boars in a fenced-off area.
Political parties, local authorities and environmental associations throughout Portugal are outraged over the hunting trip, which took place on December 17 and 18, and an official investigation has been launched regarding the owners of the Torre de Bela land, the organisers and the hunters. In the meantime, the hunting license for the area has been suspended.
Associações ambientais e de defesa dos animais exigem responsabilizações por matança na Azambuja https://t.co/5qWXzkIQc7 pic.twitter.com/oojLv46hgR
— Márcio M. Silva (@marciojmsilva) December 23, 2020
The deputy mayor of Azambuja, the district of Lisbon where the hunt took place, told Portuguese broadcaster TVI24 that the animals were in a fenced-off area and had “nowhere to run.”
“What happened was a massacre,” said Silvino Lúcio.
A group of Spaniards who paid as much as €8,000 ($9,745) each to hunt in the area on Dec. 17 and 18 are thought to be behind the mass slaughter.
One of the hunters posted photos of himself and 15 other hunters posing next to the pile of dead animals, triggering outrage across Iberia.
Portuguese Environment Minister João Pedro Matos Fernandes called the hunt “a vile and hateful act” and ordered an investigation to be opened into what he described as an “environmental crime.”
The Portuguese Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF) suspended the Torrebela Tourist Hunting Zone’s license and has launched a probe into what happened.
“There is strong evidence of a crime against the preservation of fauna,” said the organization in a statement.
Portugal’s Environmental Ministry also ordered on Tuesday the “immediate halt” of an environmental impact study of a large solar power plant in the area
According to other hunting societies, killing 540 animals is “not hunting, it’s massive slaughter of confined animals”, said Nelson Cadavez from the Club Monteria del Norte in a statement to national press.
According to the Portuguese press, the situation may have been motivated by the company which owns the land, which reportedly wants it to be reclassified so they can build on it, which they are not able to do with wildlife present. The aim is to install a solar energy plant.
Yet Matos Fernandes told the media that he did not suspect a link between the slaughter and the solar power plant and was suspending the environmental impact study because the area is clearly home to large animals.
The environment minister also said he would call for the National Hunting Council to review whether Portugal’s laws need to be changed to prevent events like this from happening again.
The European Union has a number of regulations related to hunting, but specific legislation within each EU country differs.
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