Italy’s environment minister has called for a nationwide ban on Sunday hunting after an 18-year-old was fatally shot because he was mistaken for a wild boar.

Nathan Labolani was walking his dog in the woods near Apricale, 10 miles north of Ventimiglia, close to the French border, on Sunday morning when he was shot in the abdomen with a 300 Winchester magnum rifle.

The incident sparked a political furore and a fierce reaction from anti-hunting activists, who say that anyone who strolls through the woods is now “gambling with death”.

Sergio Costa, the environment minister, appealed to regional governments to immediately ban the hunting of wild boar on Sundays, while pledging to evaluate the need for a national law to “allow greater security and better management of hunting”.

“What happened yesterday is a huge tragedy that has struck us all deeply,” Mr Costa wrote on his Facebook page.

He said that on Sundays forests and mountains were full of hikers who went in search of mushrooms or chestnuts and they had the right to “simply enjoy nature without running the risk of dying”.

Boar populations have risen rapidly in Italy, partly as a result of farmland being abandoned and recolonised by scrub and woodland, prompting a heated debate about how manage their numbers.