Amden SG: hobby hunter convicted after illegal killing of crowned stags and weapons discovery

A hobby hunter from the canton of St. Gallen has been convicted with legal effect for the illegal killing of two crowned stags that had not been approved for shooting, as well as for several breaches of the weapons act.

During a house search, the St. Gallen cantonal police came across a large number of weapons – a total of 71 firearms – as well as numerous undeclared hunting trophies.

It is late summer 2024, an evening around 9.30 pm in a hunting ground in Amden SG. An elderly hobby hunter observes two male red deer through his binoculars, approaches to within about 150 metres and shoots. Both animals collapse under the hits. These were two crowned stags – red deer with at least three tines per antler beam above the middle tine. Their shooting was not approved under the hunting plan at the time in question.

Because it is already dark, the hobby hunter does not at first make out exactly which animals they are. He calls in hobby hunting companions to help with the recovery. He takes the heads himself, and a colleague brings the meat to a cold storage room. A voluntary self-report, as is customary and expected in the case of mistaken kills, does not follow.

House search brings 71 weapons and numerous trophies to light

How the St. Gallen cantonal police tracked the man down is not clear from the penal order issued by the Uznach investigation office; the document merely notes a witness allowance. The «Südostschweiz» reported, citing hunting circles, that someone from the hobby hunter's circle had reported him – a claim that cannot be independently verified. During the subsequent house search, it became clear that it did not stop at the two illegally shot crown-antlered red deer: the police seized a total of 71 firearms, including twelve assault rifles as well as various pistols, revolvers and carbines. They were stored, among other places, in the cellar, on walls, in a TV cabinet and in rucksacks in a storage room.

In addition to ammunition and weapon components, the police also found numerous undeclared hunting trophies: antlers, skull bones of various animal species – including the lower jaws of 22 cows as well as of red deer calves and young hinds – as well as ibex horns whose origin, claimed to be found dead game, remained unclear. Ibex are under special protection in Switzerland. The hobby hunter should have reported much of this, which he failed to do.

22,400 francs fine and loss of hunting lease

The hobby hunter has now been convicted with legal effect of several offences and infractions against the hunting act as well as the weapons act. The sentence: a suspended fine of 22,400 francs with a two-year probation period – which therefore only becomes due if he reoffends during this time – as well as an unconditional, immediately payable fine of 1,500 francs, or eleven days' imprisonment in lieu. In addition there is a compensation claim of 2,160 francs. Effectively, the man must therefore pay around 8,400 francs immediately, made up of the fine, the compensation claim, fees and procedural costs.

Six of the seized weapons as well as various trophies will be confiscated and destroyed. Around 30 further firearms, weapon accessories and ammunition are being handed over to the St. Gallen cantonal police for examination of any possible administrative measures. The «Südostschweiz» also reported, citing hunting circles, on hunting-related consequences for the man: he is said to have lost the lease of his hunting ground and to have been excluded from the hunting association.

Not an isolated case in the canton of St. Gallen

The case from Amden recalls a similarly structured case from the Werdenberg-Sarganserland electoral district: in April 2024, a hobby hunter in Mels SG was convicted of poaching. There, too, a house search had brought to light undeclared antler trophies, the mounted skull of a protected lynx, as well as illegal weapons and weapon accessories. Whether there is a connection between the two cases is not known.

Such cases throw a spotlight on the oversight of hobby hunting in Switzerland: without a tip-off from within the hunting community itself, the case in Amden would presumably never have come to light. You can find more on cases of illegal killing and violations of the hunting act in our hunting dossier. The case thus also raises more fundamental questions about the supervision exercised by the responsible cantonal authority.

A structural problem of the St. Gallen hunting administration

The case fits a pattern that IG Wild beim Wild describes in its analysis of the psychology of hobby hunting in the canton of St. Gallen: the stockpile of weapons and trophies was uncovered not through a systematic inspection by the authorities, but through a tip-off from within the hobby hunting community itself. How long the collection would otherwise have remained undetected remains an open question.

Critics see in this not an isolated failure, but an expression of structural closeness between the administration and the hobby hunters. In this connection, IG Wild beim Wild points, for example, to the staffing of the hunting division with a person who is referred to in the organisation's own articles as a «lying hunter», as well as to repeated reports of lax enforcement, documented among other places in the article on the «rotten apple» in the St. Gallen hunting administration. The case from Amden thus provides a further example of how inconspicuously major violations of the hunting and weapons acts can persist over years when oversight relies primarily on self-regulation within the hunting scene.

The best-known proof of this sits at the very top of the authority itself: office head Dominik Thiel, head of the St. Gallen Office for Nature, Hunting and Fisheries, travelled in 2024 together with a game warden to a multi-day wolf hunt in Russia – officially declared as further training, criticised by conservation organisations as a trophy trip at the taxpayers' expense to a country under international sanctions. The responsible member of the cantonal government defended the trip at the time by pointing to «conflicts of interest» that one has to tolerate. When even the leadership of the hunting administration lacks distance from its own supervisory function, it comes as little surprise that in enforcement, too, individual hobby hunters — as in the Amden case — are apparently subject to little systematic oversight.