End the War Against Wildlife

The actions of recreational hunters in the field have nothing to do with humanity — they are acts of barbarism, warfare, and brutal violence.

Unlike ordinary people, for whom a connection with nature is an inspiring, primordial force — the love of humankind for nature and for all living things — the recreational hunter nurtures and cultivates hatred toward the beauty of life and a drive toward destruction.

Because of the arrogance, greed, ignorance, and selfishness of recreational hunters, the general public must search for wildlife through binoculars, whereas in areas free from hunting, animals can be seen with the naked eye and approach without fear. It is not closeness to nature, but estrangement and hostility, that the recreational hunter lives and creates. The recreational hunter disturbs wildlife on every visit to the countryside. Wildlife instinctively sense who is a good person and who is not. Psychological stress, suffering, and fear are lifelong companions for wildlife in a hunted area.

Not only does humanity come from nature, develop within it, and evolve through its interplay with it — every human being, like all other forms of life, must be seen as part of the greater whole. The same life force that flows through animals and plants flows through us as well.

Recreational hunters create a surreal nature

Today, nature is being reduced by recreational hunters to a kind of stage set — one that represents an enormous loss of quality of life for people, animals, and the environment alike. Recreational hunters maintain a kind of concentration camp for wildlife across the landscape. Take a winter train journey on the ICE from Basel to Hamburg, and every few seconds the astonished traveler sees hunting stand after hunting stand lined up outside the window — yet not a single wild animal in sight. Hunting is war!

Anyone who produces as much harm as recreational hunters cannot expect a positive outcome or a positive response.

IG Wild beim Wild

Wildlife habitat is shrinking ever further. This is where the full perversion and hypocrisy of the hunting menace comes to light. If humans are already destroying nature and the habitat of wild animals, there is no need to hunt wildlife unnecessarily on top of that — and certainly not during the harsh winter months. Wild animals are punished twice over, even though they bear no responsibility whatsoever. The recreational hunter is no friend of animals — his very name says as much. Recreational hunters do not only shoot sick or elderly wildlife. No, they shoot at anything purely for fun and even pay for the privilege. On closer analysis, recreational hunters are anything but environmentalists or animal welfare advocates. No wildlife group has a more miserable ecological footprint than recreational hunters.

Recreational hunters always claim that the killing is only a small part of their activities in the war that is hunting. What else do they do? Yet 99% of all media reports and social media posts by recreational hunters are about exactly that — invariably accompanied by revolting images of victims and perpetrators.

Interestingly, public opinion holds a very different picture of recreational hunters. Foresters, farmers, and nature conservation organizations shape wildlife management. The recreational hunter somehow still manages to be the fifth wheel on the wagon — and from that position, he frequently torpedoes the conservation projects of others or makes nonsensical demands.

Recreational hunters, hunting associations, and state hunting authorities financed by hunters justify and organize the war that is hunting. In doing so, the public is led to believe that hunting is necessary because otherwise certain species would simply starve, and that it is more humane to deliberately shoot them at the peak of health — preferably as juveniles. Recreational hunters are therefore not out searching for starving wildlife to put out of its misery. No, they typically seek out the strongest and healthiest animals in order to bring home a fine trophy and boast to their friends. Recreational hunters and state hunting authorities have no interest in sustainably or permanently reducing populations, because doing so would diminish the blood money in their coffers. A prime negative example in Switzerland is the canton of Graubünden. Artificially bred overpopulation is the smoke grenade recreational hunters use to promote animal killing as a hobby.

You can give back far more to nature when you are not a recreational hunter trying to nurture and care for it.

In the Lotka-Volterra model predator and prey species display coupled fluctuations in abundance. Simply put: when prey is plentiful, the predator population grows; prey then becomes scarcer, predators can no longer find sufficient food and decline in number, allowing the prey population to recover, and so on.

There is nothing more unnatural than hunting today

Hunting does not regulate wildlife in the sense of natural population levels — instead it creates inflated or suppressed populations. These unnatural problems and overpopulations are manufactured above all by recreational hunters, so that recreational hunters can assign themselves an allegedly legal mandate. Hunting has long since had nothing to do with honorable wildlife management; it has simply degenerated — far beyond any ethical bounds — into an ever more brutal slaughter of wildlife (see special hunts). Organizing attractive hunts is the agenda. In the relevant circles this is deceptively called "habitat-adapted wildlife populations," "fine regulation," "two-tier system," "dynamic management," «development aid», "harvesting," "skimming," or similar animal-contemptuous propaganda. Brainwashing of the kind we know from National Socialism.

Hunting is not about broad biodiversity or the protection of individual wild animals — it is about money and pleasure. Militant hunters are granted access everywhere to create problems that would otherwise not exist at all. When one has a withered conscience, everything can be managed by force.

Hobby-Jäger und ihr Muster im Gehirn

Humans and wildlife alike deserve scientific wildlife management — not hunting. This means, among other things: fully protecting predators such as foxes, wolves, lynxes, and birds of prey so that a turnaround in the protection of biodiversity becomes visible.

Hunters' tall tales and foxes

There is not a single scientific piece of evidence that recreational hunting can reduce the rate of fox tapeworm infestation in foxes.

In the case of rabies as well, only area-wide vaccination campaigns using bait stations proved successful — fox hunting had been shown by studies to be counterproductive and had even contributed to the spread of rabies.

Foxes, which are monogamous and territorial in the wild, are forced by recreational hunting to relocate in search of new mates, since recreational hunters shoot apart bonded pairs. By destroying the social structures of animal communities, this not only triggers new pairings in which every female is fertilized — thereby increasing the birth rate — but also promotes the spread of diseases such as Lyme disease or tularemia (hunters spread diseases) that recreational hunting is supposedly meant to control.

The hunter loves nature the way a rapist loves his victim.

Karin Hutter

Due to the unprofessional and careless shooting by recreational hunters (pseudo-hunters — what exactly is that?) alongside other factors, wild boar populations are multiplying uncontrollably according to studies. Under normal circumstances, only the lead sow of a sounder gives birth to piglets. In undisturbed, hunting-free mammal territories, dominant females suppress the reproductive capacity and willingness of subordinate females through specific scent markings (pheromones). When the lead sow is shot — which happens very often, since it is extremely difficult to identify which animal is the lead sow — these unnatural and explosive population surges occur as well.

The flimsy justification offered by recreational hunters typically includes the claim that wild boar and similar animals are encroaching on towns and villages, destroying gardens, and endangering the public. This argument is frequently invoked to justify intensified hunting. Yet in settlements near the forest edge, it is often the residents themselves who share responsibility for the wild boar "incursions": compost heaps attract these woodland dwellers just as readily as poorly fenced or unfenced vegetable gardens.

There are, however, several ways to keep unwanted wildlife away from specific areas. In addition to "deterrents," there are gentle methods involving human hair (collected at the hairdresser and distributed in suitable spots) or the application of human urine, fencing, and so on.

Recreational hunters are poisoning the environment, nature, humans, and animals with their ammunition. Lead is a heavy metal that not only kills animals in a cruel manner but also enters the nutrient cycles of nature through chemical transformation, ultimately ending up in the soil, drinking water, and food.

More and more wildlife biologists are arriving at the scientifically supported conclusion that animals regulate their own population density, and that overpopulation is caused in large part by recreational hunting.

Today's recreational hunting is predominantly a massive, destructive, and violent interference in natural rhythms and cannot be described as a positive necessity.

IG Wild beim Wild

The stress and manipulation that hunting exerts on animals year-round — noise, fear, terror, and persecution — significantly impairs wildlife's ability to feed in peace and quiet, maintain normal social behavior, move freely, and adapt the population to available resources.

Today's hunting destroys the normal social life of wildlife, the ecological balance, natural behaviors, family structures and social bonds, use of dens and hiding places, the shift from daytime to nighttime activity, increased migration into unhuned residential areas, and unnatural concentrations of animals in forests and even in cities.

Recreational Hunters: A Natural Disaster

In the chaos that nature finds itself in after decades of management and stewardship by hobby hunters , the share of threatened species is higher in no other country in the world than in Switzerland. These hired killers have been creating an ecological imbalance in the cultivated landscape for decades, with sometimes dramatic consequences (protective forests, diseases, agricultural damage, and much more). Over a third of plant, wildlife and fungal species are considered threatened. Switzerland also ranks last in Europe when it comes to designating protected areas for biodiversity. It is precisely these circles of recreational hunters, through their lobbying efforts in politics, media, and legislation, who have been responsible for this for decades. They are the ones who notoriously block timely, ethical improvements in animal welfare and sabotage serious animal and species protection. Recreational hunters regularly oppose more national parks in Switzerland, because they are not concerned with nature, biodiversity, species protection, or animal welfare — but rather with indulging their perverted, bloody hobby.

Did you know …

• that in Switzerland innocent young wolves are being liquidated?
• that recreational hunters lie when assessing game meat quality and that processed game meat, according to the WHO, is carcinogenic like cigarettes, asbestos, or arsenic?
• that according to a study, nowhere is the lead contamination of golden eagles and bearded vultures higher than in the Swiss Alps, due to the ammunition used by recreational hunters?
• that the fair chase ethics of recreational hunters are diametrically opposed to animal welfare legislation and are nothing but a mirage?
• that hunting is war, where animal competitors are simply liquidated?
• that there are countless illegal and unmarked hunting stands throughout our natural landscape, some so rotten that they pose a danger to children and can cause people to lose their lives?
• that year after year countless people are killed or injured by hunters' weapons, some so severely that they end up in wheelchairs or have limbs amputated?
• that in Switzerland approximately 120,000 perfectly healthy roe deer, red deer, foxes, marmots, and chamois are killed every year, mostly for no good reason?
• that because of recreational hunters, it is today nearly impossible to live in harmony with wildlife or to see wild animals at all?
• that shotgun blasts make hares scream like small children and tear apart the entrails of “shot” roe deer and red deer so they leave a blood trail for tracking during the follow-up search?
• that the claim made by recreational hunters — that brutal wildlife massacres are necessary to regulate animal populations — has been scientifically disproven?
• that recreational hunters openly admit that hunting is about the “pleasure of killing” and “the joy of making a kill,” a pathological obsession?
• that recreational hunters have no sixth sense, yet regularly claim they only shoot sick and weak animals — which is, of course, not true in practice?
• that recreational hunters travel abroad for trophy hunting, far from any species protection or hunting regulations, and that there are even Swiss recreational hunter travel agencies organizing such mindless hunting excursions?
• that the vast majority are not licensed professional hunters, but pursue hunting as a hobby, sport, and leisure activity — which is neither ethical nor consistent with animal welfare legislation?
• that 99.07% of civilized people in Switzerland are not recreational hunters, meaning only 0.3% of recreational hunters take pleasure in these bloody activities?
• that these wildlife killers do not hunt based on scientific justifications?
• that protected species actually do not belong under hunting law, because recreational hunters are overwhelmed by species conservation and repeatedly shoot animals listed on the Red List — such as lynx, wolf, hare, grey partridge, quail, etc. — for fun?
• that recreational hunters deliberately decimate certain animal species to eliminate competition for their unnatural behavior (fox, lynx, wolf, birds of prey, etc.)?
• that wildlife dies before the recreational hunter can even fire a single shot, that preventing this is the goal, and that this is likely the central idea behind wildlife stewardship, care, and hunting management plans?
• that with wild boars (and foxes), normally only the lead sow gives birth to young, but due to her being shot, all female animals within the sounder reproduce, and this is also why we have a wild boar population explosion?
• that grazing animals — deer, roe deer, etc. — originally lived mainly as diurnal animals in fields and meadows, like goats, sheep, cows, etc., and not in the forest?
• that the wolf is vitally important in the long term for keeping wild ungulates healthy, because, for example, it hunts sick or weak animals with incredible precision and is thereby far superior to recreational hunters?
• that foxes after the pointless hunt usually end up in the trash?
• that foxes today are hunted mainly so that there are more hares, etc. for recreational hunters in the frying pan? That the fox, however, feeds on hares less than 10% of the time and would never catch a healthy hare?
• that in animal welfare, you cannot deal with recreational hunters using only gentleness, street festivals, prayer chains, etc. (you need to fight fire with fire)?
• that recreational hunters use hunters' tall tales to engage in disrespectful mockery of living beings?
• that it is considered taboo to shoot big game at feeding stations or during mating season, yet recreational hunters have no qualms about doing exactly this to their prey competitor, the fox?
• that in some cantons, recreational hunters go hunting solely for the tender meat of a young animal?
• that recreational hunters shoot pregnant mother deer in front of their young, or only target young animals during the rearing season (Post-Special Hunt)?
• that recreational hunters poison the environment, nature, humans, and animals with their ammunition?
• that bestiality, barbarity, cruelty, bloodshed, and senseless suffering cannot be considered cultural heritage in a civilized society?
• that recreational hunters shoot approximately 10’000 roe deer fawns every year?
• that recreational hunters in harsh winters lure starving animals with food only to shoot them in a cowardly and treacherous manner?
• that recreational hunters send agitated dogs into burrows to eliminate foxes and badgers (den hunting)?
• that recreational hunters lure peaceful living creatures into box traps, where they may suffer for days awaiting their killer, or are often subjected to an agonizing death struggle lasting hours (trap hunting)?
• that recreational hunters cowardly ambush and shoot or wound peaceful wild animals while they are sleeping or sunbathing, using state-of-the-art precision weapons?
• that recreational hunters support awards, fur markets, trophy cult prize ceremonies, trophy shows, the fur trade, and so on?
• that recreational hunters place firearms into the hands of underage schoolchildren and practice killing with them?
• that recreational hunters often carry out their cruel acts in remote locations, which encourages animal cruelty?
• that recreational hunters seriously wound many wild animals, and the victims often suffer for hours in tremendous pain and fear until a tracking dog finds them and they are shot?
• that recreational hunters (apart from vivisection) inflict the most suffering and abuse on animals, including through their methods of killing?
• that the hunter's so-called love of animals and nature does not take joy in the existence of the beloved subject, but rather aims to possess the beloved creature body and soul, culminating in making it prey through the act of killing?
• that recreational hunters actively encourage browsing damage through hunting pressure, particularly on predators such as foxes, lynxes, and wolves?
• that recreational hunters open the door to antisocial, unethical, and unchristian behavior?
• that recreational hunters deprive the public of normal, natural wildlife observation and interaction?
• that there is no greater torture product — one contaminated with ammunition residue — than game meat?
• that there is no uniform nationwide regulation in Switzerland regarding vision testing, shooting practice, and so on for recreational hunters?
• that there is no psychological character assessment for recreational hunters?
• that there is no alcohol ban for recreational hunters when they are shooting at animals with their weapons?
• that recreational hunters infiltrate schools and educational institutions to push their hunters' tall tales and their violence on children?
• that a court in Bellinzona recently confirmed that hunting clubs promote practically everything that is cruel, unnecessary, and heartless?
• that the association «Jagd Schweiz» cultivates above all disrespect and a culture of violence – the exact opposite of what a civilized person in our society should aspire to.
• that in the canton of Grisons alone, more than 1’000 complaints and fines are issued against recreational hunters every year?

A Stumbling Block to Natural Evolution – Recreational Hunting

Modern knowledge in ecology and wildlife biology shows that the population density of wild animals regulates itself dynamically – based on food availability, territoriality, climate, disease, resources, and social and physiological factors – without human intervention, as long as it is not disrupted by shooting. Hunting pressure and other factors, however, increase the reproduction rates of the affected animal populations, something that can be observed not only in wild boar, roe deer, red deer, and pigeons, but in every species (species preservation, survival instinct, compensatory reproduction, etc.). Nature is wise, and when a species finds itself in danger, the birth rate rises. Scientific studies on this subject exist, for example, in France and Germany. With recreational hunters in the picture, there is an imbalance in the animal world, chaos and shameful manipulation in our nature.

The animals hunted today – mostly for fun – are peaceful creatures that pose no threat to humans. They have at least as much a right to exist as humans do, to participate in our shared evolution, and they are animals that the majority of Swiss people are happy to encounter on walks and hikes through forests and fields.

There is no ethical framework that endorses killing animals for fun. When people hunted in the past, it was done with respect for life and only to feed their own community. Today, no one needs to go hunting to feed themselves. The Stone Age is over! Hunting is war against living beings.

The forest and nature should be returned to people and animals as a peaceful space for recreation and coexistence. Our times are increasingly marked by brutality and violence, and hunters are not without blame. These negative energies of violence, fear, terror, disrespect, lies, cruelty, and unease that recreational hunters leave behind in nature spread throughout the cultural landscape.

Interest Group Wild beim Wild

The IG Wild beim Wild is a non-profit interest group dedicated to the sustainable and non-violent improvement of the human-animal relationship, with a specialization in the legal aspects of wildlife protection. One of our main concerns is to introduce a contemporary and serious wildlife management system in the cultural landscape, modeled after the Canton of Geneva — without recreational hunters, but with upright wildlife wardens who genuinely deserve the title and act according to a code of honor. The monopoly on the use of force belongs in the hands of the state. The IG supports scientific methods of immunocontraception for wildlife.