Animal welfare in the hunting law: calls grow louder
A modern hunting law must also demand animal welfare as its purpose and guiding principle, thereby ensuring hunting that complies with animal protection standards across all of Switzerland.
What Parliament passed is not a hunting and protection law for wild mammals and birds — it is a hunters’ protection and shooting law. A legal basis that carries the protection of wild animals in its title, while at the same time drastically reducing the protected status of a number of species and continuing to permit acts of animal cruelty, is unacceptable to the Swiss Animal Protection organisation STS. Animal welfare belongs in the hunting law!
Earth hunting has no place in modern hunting, and a modern approach limits the number of driven hunts to the absolute minimum. Modern hunting is transparent — including, and above all, when it comes to the worst possible outcome it can cause: a wounded animal fleeing the scene. In addition to a nationwide ban on earth hunting and a cap on the number of driven hunts per hunting area, the STS is calling for a legal obligation to report missed shots and conduct follow-up searches to be enshrined in the hunting law.
On a shooting course
Under the misleading label of “regulation of protected species,” Parliament wants to make it significantly easier to shoot protected animals. Wolves — including juveniles and those in protected areas — could be approved for culling on a preventive basis, simply because they might potentially cause damage. Not even “reasonable” herd protection measures would be required as a precondition. Lynx and beavers are at risk of being released for population management by the federal government without consulting Parliament or the electorate. And the mute swan also faces trouble: the federal government should be able to authorise culls “as needed” on its own authority. A law that permits such hasty decisions contradicts every principle of animal welfare and represents a massive step backwards for the protection of animals and species..
Contradiction
Switzerland likes to pride itself on being a pioneer in animal welfare. If the hunting law comes into force in its current form, the opposite will be true. The Swiss Animal Protection organisation STS does not want a hunting law that permits animal cruelty and weakens the protection of wild animals instead of strengthening it. For this reason, together with environmental organisations, the STS is launching a referendum against the proposal.
