Butchering carrion on the kitchen table

Hannes Jenny from the Office for Hunting and Lies in Graubünden wishes that the population of Graubünden would eat the “superproduct” carrion all year round.

“There is a meat product on the market that you can eat with the best conscience,” he fantasises in the audio piece.

Special hunt as the rule

It is tradition that the hobby hunters fail to reach the prescribed cull numbers in Graubünden during the main hunting season. The wild animals are later brutally killed in a manner that causes animal suffering during the unsportsmanlike special hunt, sometimes in the snow. The special hunt is always also an unethical and barbaric massacre of wild animals. Pregnant and nursing hinds as well as roe does and their young, entire social structures, are shot down without mercy as if in a blood frenzy.

A special hunt is, as the name suggests, a corrective measure. When a corrective measure becomes the rule, something is wrong with the science, wildlife biology, planning, and execution.

Populations have not been genuinely regulated for decades, but rather decimated, while birth rates are being stimulated. Wild animals belong first and foremost to the predators, not to the hobby hunters — but wolf, lynx and the like are not really wanted. The regulation of wildlife populations does not follow natural wildlife-biological conditions.

Too few butchers

Now there is an increasing problem that hunting groups during the special hunt can barely find a butcher willing to process their animals just before Christmas, writes srf.ch. There is a shortage of staff in butcher shops, which means the special hunt has to be called off.

And otherwise they just have to butcher the animal on the kitchen table or stop going to the special hunt altogether.

Orlando Strub, President of the Graubünden Meat Trade Association and butcher

Authorities and studies warn about game meat

Among wildlife enthusiasts, studies from Switzerland show that up to 90 portions of game meat per year are consumed in these households.

Many people are not even aware that several authorities warn against game meat. Processed game meat is carcinogenic — like cigarettes, asbestos, plutonium, or arsenic — explains, for example, the WHO.

With game meat, there is also an increased risk of contracting toxoplasmosis, trichinellosis, sarcocystosis, and other diseases, warns the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment. In Canada, it is generally prohibited to sell game meat from hobby hunters in restaurants or shops.

For the IG Wild beim Wild, animal protection is always also human protection.