THE EUROPEAN BOWHUNTING FEDERATION CELEBRATES ITS
10th ANNIVERSARY AT 2013 GA MEETING IN BUDAPEST / HUNGARY
This year’s general assembly meeting of the EBF also marked the 10th anniversary since its foundation in 2003. The meeting has been hosted by the Hungarian Bowhunting Association under the diligent guidance of their president Mr. Arpad Ambrozy. It took place in the small city Biatorbagy on the outskirts of capital city Budapest.
Delegates from 17 European nations have been present at the meeting:
AUSTRIA, BELGIUM, CZECH REPUBLIC, ESTONIA, FINLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, HUNGARY, ITALY, LATVIA, NORWAY, ROMANIA, RUSSIA, SLOVAKIA, SPAIN, SWEDEN, UNITED KINGDOM
The bowhunting community has been greeted by special guest Mr. Ràcz Fodor Gàbor from the Hungarian ministry for agriculture and environment who emphasized that bowhunting is firmly embedded in the hunting community of Hungary and that this traditional hunting method has rightly a place in the hunting heritage.
Current EBF president Anders Gejer from Sweden shortly portrayed the evolvement of EBF. The initial starting milestone in the establishment of EBF has been a working group meeting of bowhunting specialists in the CIC headquarter in Budapest in 2002. The meeting has been driven by Mr. Gyulay Fabian who recently passed away and has been remembered at the 2013 General Assembly. One year later this CIC meeting triggered the foundation of EBF (formerly European Bowhunting Association – EBA) in Helsinki, Finland. From its foundation meeting in Helsinki with only a few countries present EBF has grown steadily over the years and is now uniting 29 European countries.
Following the General Assembly, EBF representatives have been invited to the 60th CIC General Assembly in the Marriot Hotel in the centre of Budapest where EBF speakers portrayed bowhunting and its role and status in Europe:
· EBF Vice President, CIC delegate and bowhunting specialist for the CIC “Culture” division Mr. Juha Kylmä from Finland opened the presentation and greeted all attendees.
· Mr. Arpad Ambrozy, CIC Vice President for Hungary portrayed the role of Bow and Arrow from ancient times to the present and stressed that this traditional hunting method should be preserved.
EBF president Mr. Anders Gejer stressed that modern bowhunting should be viewed as just one of many hunting methods among which hunters can chose. He stressed that in our efforts to establish hunting as a human heritage this hunting method should not be disregarded. With recent technological advances in bowhunting equipment hunting with bow and arrow fulfills the requirements which are accepted as modern standards for ethical hunting.
Mr. Javier Sintes Pelaz from Spain introduced a recent wildlife management program in the suburbs of Madrid where specially selected and educated bowhunters where participating in a hunting program for culling wild boars from an exploding population of this species which poses serious threats to the indigenous flora and fauna of this area. The responsible environmental agency has rated the bowhunting program as a successful and cost effective method for wildlife management in areas where hunting with firearms is perceived as too dangerous or is simply prohibited by law. This is one of the few examples where hunting with bow and arrow is used as a wildlife management tool in Europe. In the United States such programs have been enacted in many suburbs and city parks where the population of Whitetail deer is getting out of hands.
Bowhunting specialists at CIC meeting in Budapest
From left to right: Javier Sintes Pelaz, Juha Kylmä, Arpad Ambrozy, and Anders Gejer