Ticino: Border guard shoots chimney sweep during hunt
In Morbio Inferiore the community is angry. The death of the 50-year-old hunter, who fell victim to "friendly fire" on Saturday, is hard to accept.
The Ticino high hunt takes place from 31 August to 14 September and from 16 to 22 September 2019.
This year the maximum shooting distance was reduced from 300 to 250 metres. The ptarmigan was removed from the list of huntable species by the Canton, to the displeasure of recreational hunters (Wild beim Wild reported), as it is on the Red List of threatened breeding birds.
After one of these supposedly highly qualified precision shooters had already departed for the eternal hunting grounds in the Valle Maggia during the very first week of the hunt, another followed him last Saturday. In the days in between, a wildlife killer in Cabbio, a hamlet near Breggia, shot a fellow hunter in the hand and seriously injured the victim.
Monte Penz in Pedrinate
In the woods of Penz near Pedrinate, close to Mendrisio, the second fatal Hunting Accident occurred shortly before noon on Saturday. A 50-year-old recreational hunter died from a shot fired by a 51-year-old recreational hunter, a border guard by profession according to the Corriere del Ticino, who believed he had seen a wild boar. The two men were good friends and were hunting together. Besides his wife, the chimney sweep leaves behind two daughters (12 and 17) and a son (16).
The emergency services that were alerted could only confirm the death of the man who had been hit. The two recreational hunters, the shooter being 51 years old, are Swiss nationals living in southern Ticino, as the Ticino cantonal police announced. An investigation is to establish exactly how the hunting accident happened.
«I was at the Splash & Spa in Rivera with the children when the tragedy happened", the widow Geneviève G.* (44) told blick.ch. "Around 2 pm I received the call with the terrible news. I simply didn't want to believe it.» At first they wanted to forbid her from seeing her dead husband, «but then I was allowed to see him after all and say goodbye».
The Ticino woman fights back tears. «He was my soulmate. I simply don't know how to go on without him», says the widow. «Stefano was such a full-of-life man. Everyone loved him.»
Geneviève cannot explain how the accident happened. «Stefano was always very careful. On Saturday he wanted to drive the wild boars towards his colleagues», recounts Geneviève G., «and he was also wearing his bright orange vest so that he could be seen clearly.»
Pedrinate is the third incident in connection with the recreational hunting in Ticino since the beginning of September 2019, and the second with a fatal outcome. These morbid hunts for amateur hunters are orchestrated by the cantonal office for hunting and fishing in order to fund itself with blood money.
An area where little hunting takes place
The mayor of Chiasso, Bruno Arrigoni, is shaken by what happened in Pedrinate: «It is a tragedy; I can only offer the family my condolences and express my solidarity. I am truly sorry. Until now it was not clear to us that this area could be dangerous for recreational hunters. This is indeed not an area where hunting is frequent».
Hunting in Ticino has only been open for a few weeks, but 2019 will certainly be remembered in the hunting world as an “annus horribilis”.
Addendum of 23 October 2026: In October 2021, a Ticino court sentenced the shooter for negligent homicide to two years and ten months in prison, six months of which unsuspended. The sentence exceeded the prosecution's request of twelve months suspended. According to RSI, it was not the man's first hunting accident. The judge described his conduct as very serious (RSI).
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. 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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