06/11/2025
PER IA OGNI ANNO IN SPAGNA VENGONO ABBANDONATI 50.000 CANI DA CACCIA: PER LA QUESTURA SONO 3.000
Un cacciatore che stimiamo molto come comunicatore ci svela i retroscena di una delle tante leggende metroanimaliste
The hunting community is way behind on sharing FACTs - and it's killing us!
I just asked ChatGPT and Copilot a simple question: How many hunting dogs are abandoned by Spanish hunters every year?
I obviously realize that it is not a question for which anyone can provide a very accurate answer, but asking the two AI services does give a reasonably accurate impression of the available information on the Internet.
They both agreed that AT LEAST 50,000 hunting dogs are abandoned every year in Spain. Maybe up to 60,000!
A shocking number indeed, and if I were a regular non-hunter simply seeking information, I would now consider adopting one of these abandoned dogs. I would also dislike hunters in general and Spanish hunters in particular.
I do, however, know for a fact that there are new official numbers from animal shelters in Spain that tell an entirely different story.
According to the Study on the "Management of Animal Protection in Spain", promoted by the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs, and Agenda 2030, only 12.9% of dogs entering shelters are of hunting breeds.
That is approximately one in eight dogs that come to shelters. In total, we are talking about less than 3,000 dogs of hunting dog breeds out of about 19,000 turning up at animal shelters as lost/abandoned. The rest of the dogs are regular family dogs of different breeds.
3,000 is very far from 50,000 - 60,000.
So why do ChatGPT and Copilot claim that the numbers are about 17-20 times as high as the actual records show?
The answer is simple: It's because the available data on the Internet are primarily estimates made by animal welfare organizations like CAS International from the Netherlands, who are campaigning against hunting and using the inflated numbers to raise funds from gullible "animal lovers". It's a business model, it's easy, and it is very profitable. These organizations will never go away, and they will never stop lying to enrich themselves.
It is, however, way too easy to blame the crooks. Because we will never stand a chance to counter these false narratives if we do not do whatever we can to spread the truth. And that brings me to the point: We are way behind on documenting the facts about hunting and the consequences of hunting. We are also way behind on actively spreading the facts we do have. And therefore, the online AI oracles like ChatGPT and Copilot are currently involuntary mouthpieces for the lies of Animal Rights Organizations - simply because the vast majority of information available on hunting reflects their anti-hunting narrative.
What we can - and definitely should - do is to gather the actual facts. The research will take time and cost money, but as we will always have inferior arguments on the emotional side, we rely entirely on solid facts. We should also start an AI-based online "ask us anything about hunting" site, which bases its answers on curated fact-checked sources and always refers to the sources of the answers it gives.
I think we need this in a hurry. Sadly, I am not optimistic about raising the funds for it or seeing the hunting community come together to counter the many false narratives about hunting.
The truth of tomorrow is the visible and popular "truth". We must make the actual truth much more visible.
Jens Ulrik Høgh
Hunter's Hunter’s Voice Community
