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Hunting

Poor Work by the Recreational Hunters

Due to unnatural recreational hunting, wild animals have become even more shy and fearful.

Editorial Wild beim Wild · 26 October 2023

Warm Weather Foils Recreational Hunters' Plans

The warm weather has thwarted the Grisons recreational hunters during the open hunt in September.

The hunted animals remained at higher altitudes, and there the recreational hunters shot 5% fewer deer than the long-term average.

Thanks to their great effort, the recreational hunters managed to kill 3’457 deer under unfavourable conditions, announced the Office for Hunting and Nonsense in Grisons . That is 319 fewer than in the previous year. In order to meet the ambitious culling targets, a further 2’218 female deer and their calves must now be killed during the cruel special hunt.

Special Hunt as a Regular Corrective Measure

The special hunt is, as the name suggests, a corrective measure. When a corrective measure becomes the norm, something is wrong with the science, wildlife biology, planning and execution — and this has been the case in Grisons at the Office for Hunting and Nonsense for decades.

The special hunt is always also an unethical and barbaric massacre of wild animals. Pregnant, nursing hinds as well as roe does and their young, entire social structures are shot down without mercy as if in a blood frenzy. Shooting nursing mother animals away from their young is despicable and cruel. One truly cannot speak of craftsmanship, wildlife biology, or science here — it is simply pure animal cruelty.

In the deer factory of Grisons, practically every fifth recreational hunter is a delinquent, with a large number of unreported cases in the annual cycle.

Recreational Hunting Increases Reproduction Rate

Recreational hunting is always a form of war against living beings, in which the negative traits of human nature come to the fore. Wildlife lives in a landscape of fear. Out of fear of recreational hunters, many wild animals have permanently abandoned their natural habitat .

Recreational hunting itself contributes to wild animals reproducing more rapidly. Studies clearly show that wild boar, deer and other wildlife increase their reproduction rate under hunting pressure, for example by reproducing at a younger age. The more intensively they are hunted, the more offspring they produce.

Wildlife Belongs to Predators

Wildlife belongs first and foremost to predators , not to recreational hunters — yet wolves, lynx and the like are not truly welcome. Foxes are shot senselessly and indiscriminately as if in a frenzy. Protected species such as the brown hare, black grouse, ptarmigan and woodcock have no place on the list of huntable species either. Every hunting activity is a disturbance to the entire wildlife population, particularly in winter.

You can help all animals and our planet with compassion. Choose empathy on your plate and in your glass. Go vegan.

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.

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