Hobby hunters versus animal rights activists in Basel-Landschaft

Tires on emergency vehicle punctured

Last Saturday, two tires on the vehicle of animal rights activist Olivier Bieli from «Hunt Watch» were slashed.

Bieli suspects that someone is trying to intimidate him.

There are disagreements between hunting associations in the canton of Basel-Landschaft and animal rights activist Olivier Bieli. Bieli, a police officer from Basel, regularly documents the driven hunts of amateur hunters, films them, and shares the footage on his Facebook page, " Hunt Watch ." The tone of the posts is heated, with amateur hunters being accused of "murder." The amateur hunters are increasingly bothered by Bieli's activism.

Charges against Bieli dropped

In the spring of this year, Bieli was reported to the Basel-Landschaft hunting authorities for allegedly obstructing recreational hunters in their work. Bieli maintains, however, that he was only observing, and the charges were dropped. Last Saturday, December 16, 2023, Bieli and four other people accompanied the cruel driven hunts in Basel-Landschaft.

After the driven hunt in Bubendorf was called off without any apparent reason, the five-person team moved to Bretzwil. However, Bieli was unable to locate the amateur hunters there either. Finally, Bieli found the hunters in Ziefen and followed them for twenty minutes through the hunting area.

When Bieli returned to his vehicle, he found both tires on the driver's side slashed. He filed a police report. The police are investigating the incident as an unknown perpetrator(s). Bieli suspects the act was committed by a member of the local hunting association and is intended to intimidate him. However, the head of a hunting club denies any connection to the incident.

Martin Thommen, the hunting supervisor for the canton of Basel-Landschaft, distanced himself from the act and emphasized that the recreational hunters had received instructions on how to behave towards animal rights activists. Nevertheless, they felt disturbed by the presence of "Hunt Watch." Bieli, in turn, reported support from the local population, who criticize recreational hunting but remain silent for fear of reprisals.

Recreational hunting is not intended for population control.

Hunting associations and recreational hunting in general have been regularly criticized for years by animal rights activists, who see it as animal cruelty and senseless violence. The claim that these cruel driven hunts are used to control wildlife populations and maintain a balance between agriculture, nature, and humans is a myth. A driven hunt is a hunt in which dogs or beaters force all wild animals to leave their cover. Anything that moves is shot at.

We commend the Canton of Geneva for its professional wildlife management system, free from recreational hunting and staffed by reputable game wardens. Like the rest of Switzerland, the Lake Geneva region boasts vineyards and other cultivated areas. However, they clearly employ humane and ethical approaches to wildlife management and implement intelligent measures to protect these crops. Game wardens do not organize driven hunts or use hunting dogs. In Geneva, foxes, martens, badgers, birds, and other wildlife are not culled simply because a hunting season is arbitrarily declared. Instead, practical deterrent measures, effective public education and support, and further training are conducted in collaboration with the game wardens. Safety, expertise, animal welfare , and ethics are their guiding principles.