Animal welfare advocates call for reform of hunting legislation in Germany
The state government is planning a revision of Lower Saxony's hunting law. The training of hunting dogs on live animals is to be restricted. On Thursday, the state hunters' association demonstrated in Hanover.
At roughly the same time as the recreational hunters, animal welfare advocates also gathered in front of the state parliament.
According to police, around 250 people took part in a counter-demonstration called by the Wildlife Protection Association Germany (Wildtierschutzbund Deutschland).
Minister capitulates to hunting lobby
The animal welfare advocates accused Minister Staudte of having “capitulated to the hunting lobby” — there were no improvements in animal welfare. The nature conservation organisation NABU had also previously called for protest. The key points paper on Lower Saxony's hunting law had previously been sharply criticised.
Outdated hunting law from the last century
In the call to action, the animal welfare advocates expressed support for a revision of the hunting law. “Large parts of the current legislation still date from the middle of the last century,” NABU had previously stated. They reflect neither the overarching societal goal of “greater animal welfare” nor the current state of research to a sufficient degree. As studies demonstrate, recreational hunting fails as a means of population control.
The state animal welfare association accuses the state hunters' association of seeking to intimidate decision-makers. Furthermore, the association criticises the red-green coalition for having moved away from the goals agreed upon in the coalition agreement. This contradicts the fundamental pillars of democracy. More on the animal welfare problem of recreational hunting.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In our dossiers on the criticism of recreational hunting gather fact-checks, analyses and background reports. The scientific evidence is presented in the overview Studies on the Effects of Recreational Hunting.
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.
