Recreational hunting as an event

Anyone leafing through the relevant hunting magazines and hunting association websites in Switzerland finds more than just dates. They find a narrative. Hunting is staged there as a blend of custom, family outing, market, fair and further training. With festive catering, raffles, children's programmes and “workshops”, the killing of wild animals is given a framing that makes it seem harmless and a matter of course.

The range is considerable: shooting training and long-range shooting seminars, trophy shows, fur and pelt markets, hunting fairs, lotto, hunting horn festivals, Hubertus masses, children's concerts. Recreational hunting is thus asserted not merely as a “craft” but as a cultural offering intended to manufacture social acceptance. This dossier analyses how this event culture works, what it conceals and which questions the public has a right to ask.

What awaits you here

Shooting as normality: training, instruction and long-range shots: How shooting seminars and long-range courses shift the focus from wildlife protection to accuracy, and why this is ethically problematic.
Fur and pelts as an attraction: markets, awards, trade: What it means when dead animal bodies become a beauty contest and violence is turned into folklore.
Trophy shows: hunting as exhibition and status symbol: Why the public display of killed wild animals is not a neutral “tradition” but framing.
Fair, market, “cultural evening”: recreational hunting as a PR offensive: What hunting fairs such as the “Jagdmesse Schweiz” at the Umwelt Arena in Spreitenbach really are, and what is missing from them.
Religion and custom: Hubertus mass and hunting horn festival: How cultural and religious charging immunises hunting against criticism.
Hunting as a family programme: children's concert and red deer show: What it means when killing is embedded in children's formats, and how early framing begins.
Lotto, “sow shooting” and Metzgete: death as a game: How trivialisation and gamification turn the death of wild animals into a leisure routine.
What the public can and should ask: Concrete questions, politely but persistently.
Argumentation guide: Answers to the most common justifications of hunting event culture.
Quick links: All relevant articles, studies and dossiers.

Shooting as the norm: training, instruction and long-range shots

Several dates in the Swiss hunting calendar for the 2025/26 season were explicitly about shooting: an instruction course at the Selgis hunting and sport shooting range (13.12.2025) and a public clay-pigeon training session (28.01.2026) at the same facility. Two seminars in Bülach follow later: «Hunting long-range shot» (26.03.2026) and «Coup de grâce with handgun and long gun» (29.03.2026).

This reveals a problematic shift: instead of discussing wildlife tranquillity, habitats or conflict prevention, range, technique and hit performance become the core content. At the «Long-range shot» seminar, distance becomes the learning goal. The consequence is well known: with every additional metre of distance, the possibilities for control diminish, external influences such as wind and the movement of the animal have a stronger effect, and the impact of the hit becomes harder to assess. Even hunting-internal sources state: «Responsibility grows with every additional metre of distance. A bad shot means suffering for the game, and that must never be the price of technical overconfidence.» Yet the event setting consistently shifts the focus away from the animal and towards performance. Anyone who markets long-range shooting as an event normalises a practice that, from an animal welfare law perspective, really ought to be viewed critically.

More on this: Hunting accidents in Switzerland: the risk that is rarely discussed honestly and Hunting and weapons: why «hobby» and firearms are politically linked

Pelts and furs as an attraction: markets, awards, trade

For the first months of 2026 alone, the event calendar of the Swiss hunting associations lists a dense series of pelt and fur markets: the «Traditional Pelt Market» in Altstätten with an award for the most beautiful fox pelts (05.02.2026), the «Central Switzerland Fäälimärt» in Sursee (10.02.2026), the «Glarus Pelt Market» (14.02.2026), the «Zurich Fur Market» (28.02.2026), the «Pelt Market of the Aargau Hunting Wardens» (28.02.2026), the «Upper Valais Pelt Market» (28.02.2026) and the «Fur Market Thusis» (14.03.2026).

The message of these events is unmistakable: animals become raw materials, pelts become collectors' items, and the whole business is dressed up as folklore. When fox pelts are publicly awarded prizes, ranked by 'beauty', displayed and judged, a dead animal is reinterpreted as the object of a beauty contest. That is not 'tradition'; it is the aestheticisation of violence. The fact that these markets attract hardly any critical public comment is itself a symptom: the normalisation work of hunting event culture has advanced so far that the obvious has become invisible. Fur markets in the 21st century, in a country whose Federal Constitution protects the dignity of creatures (Art. 120 para. 2 Cst.), are anything but a given. They should trigger a public debate.

More on this: Hunting and Animal Welfare: What the Practice Does to Wild Animals and Fox hunting without facts: how JagdSchweiz invents problems that others have long since solved

Trophy shows: hunting as exhibition and status symbol

Several trophy events appear in the calendar: the Bernese cantonal trophy exhibition in Thun (31.01.2026), the Schwyz trophy show (28.02.2026), the Nidwalden trophy show (07.03.2026) and the Uri trophy show (21.03.2026, including the Uri fur and pelt market). Trophies are not neutral 'data'. They are symbolic proof of a kill, often of the largest or strongest animal in a population.

When trophies are put on public display, death is presented as an achievement. Festival catering and raffles reinforce this effect: the whole thing becomes a village fair in which the core moral question, why a sentient wild animal was turned into an object, disappears in the noise of conviviality. From a wildlife-biology perspective there is a further point: strong, experienced animals are carriers of social knowledge and genetic quality. Preferentially selecting them as trophy animals demonstrably damages pack and herd structures; for Grisons, more than 44,000 horn measurements on shot ibex show the selective effect of trophy hunting (Büntgen et al. 2018, Journal of Animal Ecology). The trophy show celebrates this. Public applause for it is not neutrality; it is a choice.

More on this: Trophy photos: double standards, dignity and the blind spot of recreational hunting and Trophy hunting: when killing becomes a status symbol

Fair, market, 'cultural evening': recreational hunting as a PR offensive

The 'Jagdmesse Schweiz' took place on 7/8 March 2026 at the Umwelt Arena in Spreitenbach, according to the Aargau veterinary service without registration and without inspection (Hunting fair Spreitenbach), and billed itself as the “biggest hunting & shooting event of the year”. Expert talks, workshops, “delicious local food and drink at the festival catering”, hunting-trip providers and “innovations from every area of hunting”: that is how the fair describes itself. Organiser Ralf Wirtensohn markets the event as an “unforgettable experience” and “the place where the heart of Swiss hunting beats”.

What is missing is telling: no independent animal welfare voice on the panels, no critical engagement with missed shots, lead contamination in game meat or hunting pressure on protected areas, no scientific assessment of how hunting affects wildlife populations. Hunting fairs are more than trade. They are acceptance machines: equipment, cuisine, “tradition meets the future”. The framing only works because inconvenient facts are consistently left out. PETA Germany has documented the same pattern at German hunting and fishing fairs: dogs and birds of prey used as living props, no room for critical expertise, and the trivialisation of animal suffering as the basic principle of the event's logic.

More on this: Hunter lobby in Switzerland: how influence works and Recreational hunters and the media

Religion and custom: Hubertus Mass and hunting horn festival

A Hubertus Mass in Schlierbach (29.12.2025) and the Swiss and international hunting horn festival in Liestal (30.05.2026) link hunting with ritual and community. That can bring people together. But it is also a strategy: anyone who charges hunting with religious or cultural meaning makes it immune to criticism.

Objection then quickly looks like an attack on “custom” or “tradition”, when in truth the issue is animal suffering, ecological impact and democratic oversight. The pattern is familiar from other fields: cockfighting, bullfighting, the fur industry: all were or are defended with “tradition” until social majorities and courts saw it differently. The religious coding of recreational hunting through Hubertus Masses serves the same function: it sets an interpretive frame in which moral questions appear as bigotry or sentimentality. That is no coincidence. It is a communication strategy.

More on this: Hunting myths: 12 claims you should scrutinise critically and The psychology of hunting

Hunting as a family outing: framing begins early

The Rothirsch-Hegeschau (red deer management show) in St. Gallen (07.03.2026) is advertising a family programme with a children's concert. When hunting is embedded in children's formats, an image forms early: hunting as natural history, public festival and adventure. A space in which animals are put on display, trophies are admired and hunting is presented as a normal part of nature.

But the reality is also this: for wild animals, hunting means fear, flight, injury and death. Children's programmes at hunting exhibitions are therefore not harmless 'education' but framing. Anyone who first brings children into contact with killed wild animals in a positive, convivial setting is shaping a prior experience before the child is able to ask questions. This is no conspiracy. It is a well-known mechanism of normalisation, which is also well documented in other consumer fields such as the meat industry or the circus. Informed parents are entitled to name it.

More on this: Hunting and children: what it means to sell killing as an experience of nature and No hunting propaganda by recreational hunters in schools (template motion)

Lotto, 'Säulischiessen' and Metzgete: death as a game

A hunters' lotto (01.01.2026) and the 'Säulischiessen' (pig-shooting contest) in Wittenbach (07.02.2026), combined with a Metzgete (traditional slaughter-day feast) and a meat prize, mark the final stage of trivialisation: recreational hunting becomes a game and consumer format. At the Säulischiessen, the language of points and hits is used. What is practised on targets ends outdoors on the animal's body.

Gamification and prize-giving fulfil a precise psychological function: they link the killing of animals to positive emotions such as success, competition and sociability. This is the exact opposite of what ethically reflective hunter training should achieve, namely awareness of animal suffering, responsibility and the question of whether a shot is necessary at all. When death becomes a prize to be won, ethical reflection is no longer part of the framework.

More on this: The hunting licence and Game meat in Switzerland

What the public can and should ask

These events are public or semi-public, and precisely for that reason socially relevant. Those who criticise recreational hunting need not look away. One can look closely and ask concrete questions, politely but persistently:

What standards apply against missed shots and follow-up searches, and how are they addressed, monitored and documented at these events?
How is animal suffering realistically addressed in training, rather than teaching exclusively technique and shooting performance?
What role do fur and pelt markets still play today, and why are pelts awarded prizes as though they were works of art rather than the remains of killed wild animals?
Why are trophies put on display instead of holding the debate about ethics and necessity?
Where are the independent voices from animal welfare and wildlife research on the panels, rather than only talks from the hunting side?
How are minors protected from one-sided framing at hunting events?
Who funds these events, and what is the ratio of public money to association funds?

What needs to change

Duty of transparency for hunting events with a public character: Hunting fairs, trophy shows and pelt markets that are open to the public or use public infrastructure must disclose who funds them, whether public money is involved and which animal welfare standards are observed. Template motion: Curbing hunting propaganda featuring dead animals
No public funds for hunting PR: Cantons and municipalities provide no public spaces, subsidies or staff support for events that promote hunting as a leisure culture without also involving independent animal welfare and wildlife protection voices.
Age restrictions for hunting events: Events at which trophies are displayed, pelts are awarded prizes or animals are raffled as prizes are to be given an age restriction or required to offer child-friendly alternative programmes that do not glorify hunting. Template motion: Ban on children and young people taking part in hunting
Duty to provide context at trophy shows and pelt markets: Trophy shows and pelt markets held in public are required to provide visible information on missed-kill rates, grazing-shot rates and the ecological impact of recreational hunting, so that visitors can form an informed view.
Ban on long-range shooting seminars as public leisure offerings: Seminars that deliberately aim to maximise shooting distance are not to be advertised as a leisure activity. Shooting training that goes beyond the statutory minimum standard is to be offered exclusively under official supervision and only as part of professional game warden training.
Independent animal welfare voices at hunting fairs: Hunting fairs with a public character are required to include independent animal welfare, wildlife research or ethics perspectives in their programme if they position themselves as educational or information events.

Talking points

“This is tradition, it has existed for hundreds of years.” That is true of many practices which society has nevertheless overcome: bear fights, cockfights, dancing bears at fairs. Tradition is a description of the past, not a moral argument. Animal welfare legislation and animal dignity are likewise part of the Swiss legal order, and a more recent part at that.

“Hunting fairs and shooting training are harmless leisure activities.” That is precisely the point: they are presented as harmless. What disappears in the staging are missed shots, wounded animals, stress for wild animals, lead pollution and the ecological consequences of intensive recreational hunting. A “harmless leisure activity” that consistently hides everything uncomfortable is not providing entertainment, it is doing PR.

“Children learn about nature at hunting events.” A one-sidedly positive portrayal of nature at hunting events is framing, not natural history teaching. Enlightened nature education shows wild animals as living, sentient individuals with social structures, not as trophies and fur-market goods. Wildlife education without killing exists. It should be the standard.

“Long-range shooting seminars improve skill and reduce missed shots.” The Grisons data show: in 2016, with 5,512 high hunt licences, the authority recorded 1,201 fines and reports, of which 1,013 were for missed shots (Hunting offences in Grisons). If shooting training were the key, these figures would have improved long ago. The problem is structural, not technical. Greater distance combined with the same structural irresponsibility produces more suffering, not less.

“It is about strengthening community and cohesion.” Community and cohesion are legitimate social needs. They do not require trophy shows, fur markets and long-range shooting seminars as a platform. Those who build community on the backs of wild animals have other options and still choose this one. That is a decision that may be questioned.

Quick links

Articles on Wild beim Wild:

Related dossiers:

Our Standard

Recreational hunting invests considerable energy in staging its public image. Trophy shows, fur markets, children's programmes and hunting fairs are not harmless events. They are acceptance machines that normalise the killing of wild animals, dress it up as folklore and make it immune to criticism. IG Wild beim Wild documents this event culture, names the framing mechanisms and asks the questions that are systematically left out at these events.

We are not demanding that recreational hunters be forbidden to meet. We are demanding that the public knows what lies behind the festival tents, raffles and «cultural evenings», and that public spaces and public funds are not used to market an armed leisure lobby as the preservation of tradition. This dossier is updated on an ongoing basis as new event formats, political initiatives or research make it necessary.

Call to Action: Have you attended or documented a hunting event? Share your observations with us: wildbeimwild.com/kontakt

More on the topic of recreational hunting: in our hunting dossier we bring together fact checks, analyses and background reports.