Capercaillie: Recreational Hunter Convicted of Animal Cruelty
Two young men were convicted after drunkenly beating a protected capercaillie to death at the Feldberg in the Black Forest.
They were drunk, boisterous, and completely out of their depth when they encountered a capercaillie during a folk festival in the Black Forest.
Two young men were convicted in Germany on 4 August 2020 in the trial concerning the violent death of the protected bird.
A 21-year-old, whom the judge was convinced had beaten the capercaillie to death in a meadow at the Feldberg the previous August, was sentenced under juvenile criminal law to serve a one-week detention and to pay 1,000 euros to the nature conservation organisation NABU. A 23-year-old man received a fine of 1,300 euros for violating the Federal Nature Conservation Act.
As the “Badische Zeitung” reported, the men claimed to have acted in self-defence and said they had merely struck the bird with their hands. The judge did not accept this explanation. The court proceeded on the basis that one of the men had beaten the bird to death with a bottle, it was further stated. This is what witnesses had reported.
What the judge found lacking in the defendant was genuine reflection on what had happened. «I do not believe you seriously see how you could have behaved differently«, said Gerber. In particular, Ferdinand I., as a hunter, was expected to demonstrate a higher level of competence in dealing with wild animals. A six-month hunting ban was also imposed.
The judge at the Amtsgericht Titisee-Neustadt went beyond the prosecutor’s request with the detention order. The prosecutor had called for a financial penalty of 2,400 euros for the younger defendant. The defence counsel had pleaded for acquittal for each of their clients. The act had caused widespread dismay beyond the local region.
Joachim Streitberger, the attorney representing Ferdinand I., told BZ that he could not follow the court's reasoning. Whether his client would appeal still needed to be discussed. Prosecutor Bernd Klippstein, on the other hand, described the verdict as appropriate. «And I would hope that it will also be accepted.» The verdict is not yet final.
Capercaillies are strictly protected as an endangered species and are found in the Black Forest only in a few remaining areas. The two defendants expressed their regret at the conclusion of the trial.
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.
