Hunting and children

Many adults associate recreational hunting with experiencing nature. When children are involved, it is often sold as “educationally valuable”: children are supposed to “learn where meat comes from” or develop “respect for nature”. But the decisive question is: which values are actually being taught when killing is presented as a normal way of dealing with wild animals?

Recreational hunting is a practice that teaches people to normalise violence against animals and to view it positively. Without a certain degree of desensitisation to suffering, most people could not practise recreational hunting over the long term. When children are introduced to this milieu early on, through hunting outings, school visits by recreational hunters, teaching materials from the circle around JagdSchweiz or hunting-themed holiday camps, what takes place is not nature education. What takes place is socialisation: the rehearsal of a value framework in which violence against animals counts as tradition, as skill and as social glue.

What awaits you here

Children learn from role models: what hunting socialisation actually teaches: How rituals, language and recognition within the hunting milieu shape children's moral map.
Bringing hunting into schools: JagdSchweiz as “nature educator”: What JagdSchweiz actually offers through the kiknet platform and school visits, and what is missing from these materials.
Weapons and children: what research says about early exposure to firearms: How early contact with weapons in positively coded social contexts shapes attitudes towards violence.
Animal suffering and children: desensitisation or distress? What happens when children are confronted with death and blood at hunting events: the effects differ, but in both cases they matter.
The language of hunting as a protective layer: How terms such as “laying out the bag”, “gutting” and “bringing down” normalise violence, and what this means for children who learn this language first.
Societal consequences: when recreational hunting becomes identity: Why early hunting socialisation structurally hampers democratic debate about hunting policy.
What meaningful nature education can offer instead: Which approaches teach empathy, responsibility and encounters with nature without killing.
The animal welfare and children's rights dimension: What the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Animal Welfare Act (TSchG) and minimum educational standards say on this question.
Argumentation guide: Answers to the most common justifications for hunting programmes aimed at children.
Quick links: All relevant articles, studies and dossiers.

Children learn from role models: what hunting socialisation teaches

Children do not acquire moral orientation primarily through explanations, but through observation, imitation and emotional context. When adults go into the forest with weapons, kill animals, ritualise the killing (laying out the bag, taking trophy photos, displaying trophies) and receive social recognition for it, this shapes the child's moral map. The message that emerges is not “killing is bad”. It is this: violence is a legitimate tool when it is embedded in tradition, legal and socially accepted.

This message works without ever being spoken aloud. Children who grow up in a hunting milieu learn that empathy is negotiable. Compassion for the animal is relativised as soon as tradition, hobby or a supposed “management mandate” comes into play. Anyone who feels disgust or sadness at the sight of a dead animal is quickly labelled “too sensitive”. Children learn to suppress these feelings instead of having them taken seriously. This is not education about nature. It is the early training of indifference to suffering, institutionally promoted and ritually anchored.

More on this: The psychology of hunting and Trophy photos: double standards, dignity and the blind spot of recreational hunting

Bringing hunting into schools: JagdSchweiz as “nature educator”

JagdSchweiz runs its own learning-venue platform for schools and offers classroom visits for teachers and school classes. Under the slogan “Bringing hunting into schools”, teaching units are advertised as “prepared to suit each age group” and combining “linguistic, mathematical, musical and visual elements in an ideal blend”. In parallel, JagdSchweiz offers teaching materials via the kiknet platform that present hunting as a “sustainable measure for preserving biodiversity and preventing damage”.

What is missing from these materials is well documented: animal welfare problems, mistaken kills, animal suffering, driven hunts, societal controversy and the actual data on mistaken kills and wounded animals are hardly addressed, if at all. Recreational hunters appear in schools and kindergartens as supposed nature educators, even though their central interest lies in winning acceptance and recruits for a hobby based on killing animals with firearms. Teaching materials from the sphere of interest groups, used one-sidedly and without critical context, are not education. They are lobbying in the classroom.

More on this: Hunter lobby in Switzerland: how influence works and No hunting propaganda by recreational hunters in schools (template motion) as well as JagdSchweiz is recruiting children: "Children in Nature" is next-generation recruitment in disguise

Weapons and children: what early exposure to weapons means

Weapons are not neutral objects. They are built for a single purpose: to injure or kill. Handling weapons in an environment framed as “nature”, “tradition” and “adventure” creates a specific association of meaning in children: weapons belong to nature, weapons are tools of adult competence, weapons are socially accepted objects.

Anyone who wants to bring nature closer to children does not need weapons to do so. Switzerland offers countless opportunities to observe wild animals, read tracks, experience habitats and understand ecological relationships without a single shot being fired. Young people undergoing hunting training in the canton of Zurich receive, in the first years, an education that lists the “use of firearms, bladed weapons and hunting dogs” as a separate training block. What is missing as a separate element: a documented training block on animal suffering, animal dignity and ethical decision-making. That is not nature education. That is weapons training with a nature backdrop.

More on this: Hunting and weapons: risks, accidents and the dangers of armed recreational hunters and The hunting licence

Animal suffering and children: desensitisation or distress

Recreational hunting means blood, death, and sometimes wounded animals, follow-up searches and long drawn-out suffering. Adults often decide for children what is “reasonable”, but children react very differently. Some show signs of desensitisation: they learn to block out what they see and to squeeze the experience into the prescribed framework of evaluation. Others react with distress, sadness or rejection and are then classed as “too sensitive”.

In both cases the fundamental pedagogical question arises: what is a child really learning here? Blood, dead bodies and slit-open animal bellies are presented as 'perfectly normal'. People speak of 'breaking open' rather than tearing apart, of 'laying out the bag' rather than carcasses. The language protects the adults, but it also shapes the children's perception. Violence no longer appears as something shocking, but as routine, as custom, as a reason for pride. Children who have to suppress their natural empathy towards animals in order to function in their social setting do not learn respect for nature. They learn to switch off compassion when it becomes inconvenient.

More on this: Wild animals, mortal fear and lack of stunning and Hunting and Animal Welfare: What the Practice Does to Wild Animals

The language of hunting as a protective layer

Hunting language is not a folkloric curiosity. It is a psychological protective tool. 'Bagging' instead of 'killing'. 'Breaking open' instead of cutting open. 'The bag' instead of a pile of corpses. 'Regulation' instead of mass killing. 'Population management' instead of a killing campaign. This language has a function: it creates emotional distance between the act and its meaning.

For adults this is a learned protective strategy. For children, who learn this language first, something else emerges: from the very beginning they internalise a view of the world in which animals are not sentient individuals but 'populations', 'bags' and 'raw material'. This is no trivial linguistic matter. Language shapes thought. Someone who learns as a child that a dead red deer is 'quarry' thinks differently about wild animals from someone who has learned that a red deer is a social animal capable of learning, with individuality and the capacity to suffer.

More on this: Hunting myths: 12 claims you should scrutinise critically and Children, hunting and the socialisation of violence

Societal consequences: when recreational hunting becomes identity

Anyone who grows up in a hunting milieu in which recreational hunting means identity, family tradition and social belonging will very probably defend it later on, not because the arguments are convincing, but because criticism is experienced as an attack on one's own background. This is not the failing of individuals. It is a foreseeable result of early, deep socialisation.

The societal consequence is significant: hunting policy in Switzerland is co-shaped by a small minority (29’328 active hunters were counted in the Federal Hunting Statistics 2025), who were socialised far out of proportion in hunting-related structures. Their convictions are not the result of a free weighing of alternatives, but often the result of a socialisation that does not even know alternatives. When hunting is regarded early on as an indisputable normality, criticism later becomes structurally harder, not because it is wrong, but because it runs against an ingrained identity. This makes democratic debate more difficult and stabilises a system that is ethically contested.

More on this: Introduction to hunting criticism and Ending leisure-time violence against animals

What meaningful nature education can do instead

Nature education worthy of the name brings children closer to wild animals without turning them into targets. It explains ecological relationships, shows conflicts between humans and animals, and looks for solutions in which nobody has to die. This is not naivety. It is a fundamental pedagogical decision to make empathy the learning goal. Concrete alternatives:

Wildlife observation: Watching roe deer in forest clearings in the early morning, observing fox families in spring, documenting bird migration, all without a weapon, without noise, without disturbance.
Tracking: Finding and identifying animal tracks in the snow, feeding signs, dens and resting places: an intensive encounter with nature that shows animals as subjects.
Ecological relationships: Explaining food chains, habitat quality, predator-prey dynamics and human influences, without the message that killing is the normal response.
Conflict mediation: What happens when a fox gets into the hen house? How can a fence protect? What makes a habitat safe for wild animals and for livestock? Children can develop solutions that kill nobody.

A review on children's connection to nature (Chawla 2020, People and Nature) shows that experiences of nature in childhood promote wellbeing and environmentally friendly behaviour without a single shot being necessary.

More on this: The game warden model and Geneva and the hunting ban

Animal welfare law and children's rights dimension

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Switzerland has acceded, guarantees children in Article 19 protection from all forms of physical and mental violence and in Article 29 an education that instils respect for human rights and for the natural environment. Teaching materials that present violence against animals one-sidedly in a positive light and systematically omit critical perspectives are difficult to reconcile with this educational mandate.

The Swiss Animal Welfare Act protects the dignity and well-being of animals (Art. 1 TSchG). A nature education that presents wild animals as kill targets and as a “bag” contradicts the spirit of a law that expressly protects animal dignity. Education is never value-neutral. Anyone who confronts children with hunting programmes is making a decision about values, and that decision deserves public discussion, not silent consent.

More on this: Ban on children and young people at hunts (template motion) and template texts for hunting-critical motions in cantonal parliaments

What needs to change

Ban on the participation of children and young people in hunting activities: Minors must not take part in the active practice of recreational hunting and must not be present at kills, follow-up searches or the laying out of the bag. Protecting young people from exposure to violence must take precedence over the recruitment interests of recreational hunters. Template motion: Ban on children and young people taking part in hunting
No teaching materials from hunting associations in public schools: Materials from JagdSchweiz, kiknet or other hunting-affiliated organisations must not be used in public schools for as long as they are one-sided and leave out animal suffering, missed shots and the wider public controversy. School visits by recreational hunters acting as “nature educators” must be replaced by independent professionals. Template motion: No hunting propaganda by recreational hunters in schools
Cantonal guidelines for nature education without exposure to violence: Cantons must issue binding guidelines that commit nature education in schools and youth programmes to non-violent methods: wild animal observation, tracking, habitat studies and ecological relationships instead of demonstrations of weapons and kills.
Protecting animal dignity in educational contexts: Trophy photos, trophy displays and the ritual staging of dead animals must not be used as educational material. The dignity of the animal (Art. 3 Animal Welfare Act) must also serve as the standard in education. Template motion: Regulate trophy photos
Raise the minimum age for starting hunting training to 18 nationwide: Hunting training, which includes handling firearms, bladed weapons and hunting dogs, should only be possible from the age of majority. Young people first need a thorough ethical education before they gain access to a practice that rests on the killing of sentient animals.

Talking points

“On the hunt, children learn where meat comes from.” The meat comes from a slaughterhouse or a farm; that can be taught without a firearm. Anyone who wants to explain 'where meat comes from' in an educational way has better places to do so than a drive hunt in an autumn forest. And anyone who honestly explains where meat comes from also explains animal suffering, slaughter conditions and alternatives, not just the positive side of hunting tradition.

“Children learn respect for nature through hunting.” Respect for nature arises from observation, wonder and empathy, not from killing. Studies on wilderness education show that children develop a deeper ecological understanding through positive, non-invasive experiences of nature. Respect that arises from ritual and social integration into a culture of killing is not respect for wild animals; it is respect for the group.

“JagdSchweiz materials are neutral and produced by experts.” JagdSchweiz is an interest organisation whose stated aim is to maintain acceptance of hunting and recruit new members. Teaching materials that one-sidedly present hunting as sustainable and scientifically grounded, without addressing missed shots, animal suffering, the problems of driven hunts and societal controversy, are interest-driven communication, not neutral education. That holds regardless of who produced them.

“Young people can decide for themselves whether they want to hunt.” That is true, but only if they have previously been informed about alternatives, know the real data and have not already been socialised into a milieu that treats criticism as an attack on identity. Early, intensive socialisation into hunting restricts freedom of choice not formally, but in practice.

Quick links

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Our Standard

Children deserve a nature education that fosters empathy, not suppresses it. When recreational hunters appear in schools, when JagdSchweiz distributes teaching materials and when children are confronted with death and violence at hunting events, that is not education. It is the early training of an acceptance of violence that disguises itself as tradition. This dossier documents why this is problematic, what research and children's rights have to say about it, and what alternatives exist. It is updated continuously as new data, studies or political developments require.

If hunting programmes are running in schools, kindergartens or youth groups in your area, get in touch with us. We document what is being conveyed, who is behind it and what alternatives exist.

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