Wildlife photographer taken to court by recreational hunters
Wildlife photographer Alain Prêtre appeared on Thursday morning, 1 July 2021, before the police court in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
We know nature photographer Alain Prêtre for his stance in favour of biodiversity and against hunting practices.
Computer seized
«The recreational hunters have it in for me this time», he says. In December 2020, police knocked on the door of his home in Chaux-de-Fonnier to seize his computer with a warrant.
He was accused of defamation and insult. The defendant had referred to the Neuchâtel recreational hunters in three emails as murderers, attackers, and pests with malicious intent.
The Neuchâtel hunting association filed a complaint against Alain Prêtre for defamation and insult following the sending of three emails. «War and death to recreational hunting», wrote Alain Prêtre in reference to the rejection of the revision of the Hunting Act by Swiss citizens on 27 September 2020.
Fine of 45 daily rates
In view of the photographer's statements, the public prosecutor's office is demanding a fine of 45 daily rates of 30 francs each.
«I stand fully behind the use of these terms», the defendant wrote in a Facebook post. Several animal welfare advocates, such as the president of the French League for Bird Protection, Allain Bougrain-Dubourg, and former actress Brigitte Bardot, have already expressed their support.
Should he be convicted, Alain Prêtre has already promised to appeal: «I am like a fox terrier: once I bite, I don't let go», he promises.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
