And since the summer season is here, and this year we're doing more holidays in the country and around the house, I'm thinking of taking my dog and my tent, and going somewhere in the mountains. To rest, to sleep, to catch up on neglected dog time, to hunt for hribi and lost zen. And I'm beating my head where to go, and where to pitch my tent, so I can let my dog roam free without getting shot!

The hunting fund centraliser says that the total area in Romania for hunting is 22,047,504 hectares. And Romania has a total area of 23,839,700 hectares. Roughly speaking, 93% of our country's surface area is hunting land. Minus the capital and nature reserves, but that's not where I'm camping. Suceava is in second place. That's a big dilemma, because if the family's patruped goes outside the 7% safety zone of Romania's territory, it can be shot without restrictions. That sucks.

By 2015, the police registered a number of 107,511 lethal weapons for hunting, in Romanian one lethal weapon for every 180th inhabitant of the country. And the law is a bit of a hunter's defence. In Sasca Mică they shot the dogs of my friend, Dănuț Lucaciu, right next to the houses. At Arbore they wreaked havoc, so much so that children contacted us to tell us that the road to Clit was littered with the bodies of shot dogs. At Cacica in the forest they shot again, but the poor puppy is alive. In Zvorâștea a little boy is still shooting cats among the houses, but he's quiet, no one has looked for him yet. In Iaslovat they shot a white puppy right in front of a house. The truth is that they like to shoot dogs, and they do it with passion.

In my mind there are about five categories of hunters. The rich, the green hunters, the hunting politicians, the poachers, and our ancestors. The latter, that is, the real ones, hunted to survive, to eat and to cover their bodies with furs. They were intelligent, and used all the senses their mothers endowed them with when they gave birth to them (so as not to confuse the deer with their mate).

The rich hunter pays dearly to kill and satisfy his inner bloodlust. He flies by plane, he flies hundreds of kilometres by jeep, and he ends up in the Carpathians. Where the bear awaits him, ready fed and prepared in advance. He, the rich man, climbs into hiding, and if he's too old and feeble to do so, the minions climb him up, complete with armchair. The bear comes to the feeder this time too, just like the Guleratu of Predeal. He looks for it with his telescope, and even runs the point along the animal's back, belly and shoulders, and prolongs the moment, because that excites him. Sometimes their eyes even meet. The master of the forest face to face with a coward. He executes his toy, but is careful not to crush its proud head, for he has paid dearly for the trophy. And the minions slice up the thief. Then he flies back home, sees Romania's forests from the plane, runs his hand through his moustache, and already knows he'll return to our beloved country. These rich people still have the habit of meeting each other, of chatting informally, and they go golfing in England, or on safari in Africa, but for the killing and hunting they come to Romania.

The hunters in green have jeeps, camouflage clothing, organize themselves in gangs or in the relationship of brother-in-law - brother-in-law - godson - grandson, invest a lot in logistics and modern technology (thermal detection, infrared), sometimes pay and hire hunters to keep their game in the wild, and even have a Hunting License.

Poor poachers are many, small and hungry. Like the plebs. If they want to put a game trophy on the table, or sell a trophy on the black, they go straight to the forest. They have no scruples, but they have complexes. They don't have a licence for a lethal weapon, but they sit with a gun in the attic, like the Baitanis caught last week in Sucevita.

The subject of poaching - hunting is a long, slippery one, not least because of the barons and important people in the landscape and institutions. And so we fall into the last category, that of hunting politicians. Until 1989 we had a great dictator, and a great hunter. Ceaușescu had the ambition to be the first hunter of the country, and those around him even made him believe he was. Now we have more and smaller ones who have discovered a new passion. They do not know the term 'wild animal', only 'hunted', and this linguistic embarrassment reflects precisely their contempt for all that is life. But I have sworn off politics.

There is a lot of hunting in Romania. Enorm. The first Hunting Law passed after the Revolution was in 1996. Since then it has been amended about 15 times, the last being Law 145/2015 - which also led to protests by poor shepherds outside Parliament, outraged at the limitation of the number of sheepdogs, their shooting and the shortening of the grazing period. But it is also absurd that the Act protects hunters. Nowhere in European law is there the term 'stray dog or cat', and in Romania not only does it exist, but they can be shot without restriction once found somewhere in the 93% of Romania's hunting area.

Any licensed gunman would feel entitled to shoot all the dogs and cats in Romania if they were not on a leash, or if they did not have a petticoat around their necks, the distinctive mark of the shepherd. Romanian ornithologists accuse dogs of destroying biodiversity, but without figures or statistics - and lack of clear evidence means irrational behaviour. But isn't man the worst enemy of biodiversity? Greenpeace Romania says that four times the amount of wood disappears each year as the volume of the People's House. A man of mind and soul loves nature and its spectacle, and the joy of life is that forests and hills are home to wild animals.

In the 21st century, we are living through a genocide of biodiversity, and all that remains in its wake are hunting statistics and forests razed to the ground. We live in a Romania of hunting areas, quotas and permits. Need we talk about morality and empathy? How pathological does a society have to be to allow itself to kill animals for pleasure?

So where do I go camping, and let my dog run around without fear of being shot? This summer I don't have anywhere!