Fact check: Zurich Government Council on the hunting initiative

IG Wild beim Wild has subjected the Cantonal Government's report to the parties of 8 November 2017, drafted in the department of the hobby hunter Markus Kägi, to a fact check.

A great deal is claimed, but what is actually true?

I) The Cantonal Government writes: The 850 lessees (of whom 230 are gamekeepers with the relevant additional training) devote on average 400 hours each to hunting, the maintenance of their hunting grounds, the prevention of game damage and responding to accidents involving wild animals, while the roughly 500 hunting guests devote 100 hours each per year; the total number of hours worked by the militia hunters amounts to around 400,000 hours per year. 

• The hunting statistics for 2016 in the canton of Zurich list 735 lessees, of whom 34 are gamekeepers without a diploma, and not a single female gamekeeper.
• Is there any evidence for the supposed 400,000 hours of the 850 lessees and hunters in the canton of Zurich? According to a survey by the umbrella organisation JagdSchweiz , the nature conservation work carried out by all 30,000 hunters in Switzerland amounts to 260,000 hours per year. The Grisons conservation association puts the figure at 25,000 hours for its 6,000 hunters.
• Anyone who kills wild animals pointlessly is not protecting anything, and it is of no use to civilised society. This also explains the high number of hours claimed by Zurich's hobby hunters.
• The hunting community shares responsibility for the many wildlife accidents. During hunting, especially during driven hunts, all animals are flushed out. They then flee and run for their lives in mortal fear – including across roads and into settlements. Moreover, by shooting lead animals which, within sounders and groups, naturally counteract an excessive reproduction rate, hunting causes populations to grow (A).
• In 2015, 973 roe deer, 110 wild boars, 843 foxes, 282 badgers, 19 brown hares as well as around 2,700 birds and small mammals were killed by motor vehicles and rail traffic in the canton of Zurich. The number of unrecorded cases is likely to be considerably higher. The costs of these accidents are not precisely recorded.

Explanation:

On closer analysis, hunters perform no compulsory service for the public, and certainly none for wild animals. Wild animals do not like hobby hunters. When entire stretches of land can be bought through a lease at a bargain price for a hobby, in order to kill and/or torment wild animals there mostly senselessly through earth hunting, driven hunts and drive hunts and so on, one is forced to use rather different terms than compulsory service. Hunters would not perform any “compulsory service” if they were not allowed to kill. This has absolutely nothing to do with the spirit of selfless compulsory service. Moreover, hunters can issue invoices for wildlife accidents or generate income through the sale of the unhealthy game meat, the sale of fur, the sale of trophies and so forth.

The type of hunt also determines the meat quality. Driven hunts or drive hunts produce inferior and unhealthy meat, which may also be contaminated with ammunition residues. Wild animals live in constant fear because of hobby hunters. Particularly when they are actually being hunted, they produce vast quantities of toxic hormones, adrenaline and so forth, which combine in the meat with the other toxins and waste products already present. The meat hygiene practised by hobby hunters does not meet any normal standards. The game meat often lies around for hours without refrigeration – there is no sign of proper handling in accordance with the usual legal requirements.

II) The cantonal government writes:  The wildlife populations native to the Canton of Zurich should remain viable in the long term and be genetically sufficiently diverse. This is only possible if enough good-quality habitats are preserved and, where possible, enhanced, restored and connected. Both the cantonal spatial planning (above all with wildlife corridors in the cantonal structure plan) and the nature conservation and forestry policy of the Canton of Zurich take this objective into account.

Explanation:

Throughout the canton of Zurich, according to the BAFU (and this after 100 years of conservation work by hunters), there are still no legally binding wildlife sanctuary zones. The predator fox is hunted fanatically and can no longer fulfil its important function for self-regulation in the ecosystem. One does not need to be a mathematician to realise that hunting predators in an unecological manner, as in the canton of Zurich, systematically produces an artificial imbalance in the animal world in favour of prey animals, to the detriment and cost of the cultivated landscape, particularly forest regeneration.

For decades, amateur hunters have been creating an ecological imbalance in the cultivated landscape with sometimes dramatic consequences (protective forest, diseases). For a genetic balance, the animals would need to be able to migrate so that they can mate with animals from other areas. Only in this way can a healthy genetic diversity be achieved, and not through intensive hunting. But since the building department in the canton of Zurich, under the leadership of Markus Kägi (hobby hunter), has for years still built almost no wildlife corridors, wildlife crossings carry great risks not only for wild animals. Of the 18 wildlife corridors of supra-regional importance, 16 in the canton of Zurich are still impaired or interrupted. These wildlife corridors would help reduce accidents involving wild animals, which would also benefit the protection of motorists.

Is lead-free ammunition used? Is alcohol abstained from during the hunt? Is driving forest tracks with heavy off-road vehicles refrained from? Are no cruel social hunts carried out? The «sportsmanship» of hobby hunters has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with nature and animal welfare or professional wildlife management.

III) The cantonal government writes: Contrary to the view of the initiators, one cannot speak of a serious safety problem with the militia hunting system.

Explanation:

In Switzerland, every year there are human injuries and fatalities caused by the high-risk group of hobby hunters. Between 2011 and 2015, a total of 1,526 injuries from hunting accidents were registered by the accident insurers. In addition, at least a dozen deaths – and this only within the hunting community! The endangerment of third parties by hobby hunters cannot be determined from the accident insurers' data. Nor are there any statistics providing more detailed analyses for the various cantons. The many hunting accidents also do not lower the health insurance and insurance premiums for the population. More and more people in the canton of Zurich feel harassed or threatened by hunting.

According to the Veterinary Association for Animal Welfare (Tierärztliche Vereinigung für Tierschutz e.V.), especially during the drive hunt, up to 70 percent of wild animals do not die immediately (E). It is not without reason that the term “follow-up search” exists for injured animals. With shattered bones and entrails hanging out, the animals flee, often suffering unbearable pain for days and dying an agonising death. For wild animals in particular, hobby hunters pose a serious risk and safety problem.

The contamination caused by the countless tonnes of lead and other highly toxic heavy metals in the ammunition that hobby hunters leave behind in nature is pure eco-terror. Lead is an extremely toxic heavy metal and also represents a particularly cruel form of hunting. Injured animals suffer, in addition to their wounds, from slow poisoning by the ammunition. Hobby hunters thereby also potentially poison fellow humans, animals, soil and groundwater.

IV) The cantonal government writes: The wildlife population in the canton of Zurich cannot regulate itself. In an intact ecosystem undisturbed by human influences, wildlife populations can regulate themselves; in the canton of Zurich this is not possible. 

Explanation:

Under “conservation” the law understands the protection and care of wild animals, whereas “hunting practice” refers to the pursuit, capture and killing of game. It is about keeping wildlife populations that are of interest to hunters stable at a high level and replacing the predators such as wolves and lynx that have been weakened here by the hand of hunters. This is also why the fox is hunted fanatically. With small-game hunting, hunters deliberately cause serious disruptions to the natural balance of species in order to be able to hunt more successfully. Habitats are deliberately manipulated and disturbed, to the detriment of all wild animals and of society.

JagdSchweiz too knows that wildlife populations would in principle – even in our cultivated landscape – regulate themselves.“ –  JagdSchweiz 29.08.2011

Upon close analysis, the amateur hunters in the canton of Zurich may even spread diseases (2, 3). Accordingly, every fox hunt is a clear violation of the Animal Welfare Act, because it lacks any reasonable grounds. Nor does any kill quota exist. For more than 30 years there have been at least 18 wildlife-biological studies that prove: fox hunting does not regulate anything, and it is also useless for disease control. On the contrary!

Under federal law, no canton in Switzerland is required to provide for hunting. It is the right of the cantons to decide whether hunting is permitted or not. If a canton decides against hunting, or even only partly against it, it may do so freely according to the Federal Constitution. The canton of Geneva long ago opted for this exemplary path. Many cantons already ban hunting locally today by means of game reserves, wildlife sanctuaries and so on. The city of Zurich, as well as the municipalities of Kilchberg and Oberengstringen and others, have declared their entire municipal territory a communal wildlife sanctuary. The city of Winterthur has designated its core zone as a wildlife sanctuary. In cantonal and communal wildlife sanctuaries, hunting is prohibited. This ban includes entering the sanctuary with weapons, allowing dogs to hunt, and so on. The necessary regulation of the wildlife population and conservation measures such as special kills of sick and injured animals or neozoa are carried out by expert game wardens who know the areas best.

Not only the federal hunting statistics make it abundantly clear that, with today's hunting nuisance, quite a lot is amiss in the canton of Zurich. The small but hobby-hunting-sterile canton of Geneva, for example, has the highest brown hare populations in all of Switzerland – not the canton of Zurich. The canton of Geneva still has grey partridges. At the hunting-free Lake Geneva, ornithologists from around the world take delight in being able to observe rare bird species, and so on. Roe deer and wild boar populations, by contrast, are disproportionately abundant in the canton of Zurich.

V) The cantonal government writes: At cantonal level, professional wildlife management comprises the steering process by which all tasks and problems in dealing with wild animals and their habitats are recorded, analysed and, as far as possible, solved. In doing so, ecological goals (biodiversity), aspects of animal welfare and animal health (e.g. combating animal diseases) and the interests of agricultural and forestry use must all be taken into account. 

Explanation:

In areas without amateur hunters in our cultivated landscape, one sees a higher diversity of species, a lower density of huntable wild animal species, less damage and fewer car accidents (C). On average, more than 20,000 wildlife accidents occur each year on Swiss roads and railways. The costs of these accidents are estimated at 40 to 50 million Swiss francs.

The wildlife populations of interest to hunters have not really been regulated for decades, but rather decimated, while the birth rate is stimulated. The consequence of the current methods is that, for example, grazing animals such as roe deer become even shyer and shift their daily activities entirely into the night. This leads to many traffic accidents. The populations of wild boars and roe deer in the canton of Zurich have literally exploded and are out of control. That is not an understanding of nature or wildlife management.

The claim that amateur hunters promote biodiversity is almost brazen. At best, it is perhaps not damaged. For example, brown hares are still being hunted. The brown hare is on the red list of endangered animal species. What this service by the hunting community is supposed to be for the general public is also beyond common sense. The highest density of brown hares was recorded in 2016, at 17.7/100 ha, in the hunting-free canton of Geneva recorded. There, where professional wildlife wardens manage the wildlife. This is the first density above 17 brown hares/100 ha since 2006 in the whole of Switzerland.

On the subject of animal health and the control of animal diseases:

In Europe, the focal point of fox tapeworm distribution — together with the hobby hunters and their senseless pursuit of the fox (1) — lies above all in Switzerland (focal point in the Zurich region and eastern Switzerland). Hobby hunters affect the health of the entire population in a negative way, because the disease cannot run its normal course and resistant populations could thus develop. The amateur hunters already contributed substantially to the rapid spread of rabies during efforts to combat it, because the male foxes had to roam further to find a mate. The disease thereby became all the more of an epidemic and was only eradicated in the early 1980s – not through the merciless hunting of the fox, but through a vaccination campaign using chicken heads.

Every August, the black-legged ticks that transmit Lyme disease hatch. The number of people who become infected with Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses is rising in Switzerland. The Federal Office of Public Health estimates that in Switzerland about 6,000 to 12,000 people fall ill each year with so-called Lyme borreliosis. For TBE the figure is between 100 and 250. The Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) therefore classifies tick-borne diseases as a significant health problem for Switzerland. This year, by the end of September, 7,000 acute cases of Lyme disease had been reported. According to the FOPH, this figure is rather low in a multi-year comparison. Over the same period, 214 TBE illnesses were registered, which is said to represent a high figure.

But it would not have to be this way. A new study (2) indicates that the absence of mouse-hunting predators, in particular the fox, is the cause of the rising number of tick-borne illnesses.

In the past, the Mange and distemper flaring up locally again and again and then dying out by itself. Especially where mange has spread particularly strongly, the foxes seem to be developing an increasing resistance to new infections. Since hunting by hobby hunters, however, negates the survival advantage that actually exists for mange-resistant foxes (after all, a hunter cannot tell whether a fox is mange-resistant just by looking at it), killing foxes is likely to be counterproductive in this respect too. Incidentally, it has been observed with distemper that wild animals have already formed antibodies, and the danger is therefore marginal.

Robert Brunold, current president of the cantonal licence hunters' association in Grisons, says: “The low hunt is not necessary».

VI) The Cantonal Government writes: Contrary to the view of the initiators, wildlife populations are also regulated through hunting in the Canton of Geneva, in the wildlife sanctuary grounds in the Canton of Zurich, and even in the National Park.

Explanation:

• Sanitary and therapeutic kills are not the same thing as regulatory hunting based on hunters' tall tales or a misunderstood experience of nature.
• In the Swiss National Park in the Engadine, hunting has not taken place for 100 years, and there, for example, the chamois population has remained constant at around 1,350 head since 1920. The fox is not hunted either. Contrary to the predictions from hunting circles, none of its prey species has become extinct. The change from pasture for cows and sheep to red deer pasture led to a completely new species composition of the vegetation and a doubling of biodiversity!

VII) The Cantonal Government writes: Professional wildlife management has already been implemented.

Explanation:

False. Hobby hunting is not scientific, wildlife-biologically sound or professional wildlife management.

It would not occur to anyone to attribute a higher quality standard to an amateur football tournament than to the Champions League with professional footballers. It is crystal clear that with professional wildlife wardens, a completely different level takes the place of amateur hunters. The wild animals benefit from this through less animal suffering, as do the population, nature and the environment.

In the canton of Geneva, for example, when it is necessary to intervene in the wild boar population, the professional wildlife wardens do this with one tenth of the time expenditure of the hobby hunters in the canton of Zurich. Consequently, the disturbance to wild animals and the population in Geneva is massively less than that caused by the hunters in the canton of Zurich. The hobby hunters in the canton of Zurich need between 60 – 80 hours, according to Theo Anderes, chairman of the Rappenstein hunting ground in Elgg. A game warden in the canton of Geneva spends only 8 hours on a necessary sanitary kill. In addition, the game wardens are also the better marksmen. A game warden in Geneva uses a maximum of two cartridges for a wild boar. A hobby hunter, however, uses up to 15 cartridges! On top of that, wild animals are often wounded by hobby hunters and die in agony. On a driven hunt or drive hunt, up to 10 times more shots are fired than the final “bag” is large.

Regardless of the animal welfare act, the amateur hunters commit, behind closed doors, that is, hideous acts of cruelty to animals and even criminal offences. If hunting today were not a hobby, would there nonetheless be hunting trips all over the world?

With professional wildlife management there would be no extremely cruel hunting methods such as driven hunts, drive hunts and so on. Earth hunting for foxes, which should already have been abolished on animal welfare grounds, thank goodness no longer exists either, thanks to the “Wildlife wardens instead of hunters» initiative. This also does justice to the idea of animal welfare for both wild animals and hunting dogs.

No one may unjustifiably inflict pain, suffering or harm on an animal, put it in a state of fear or otherwise disregard its dignity. The mistreatment, neglect or unnecessary overexertion of animals is prohibited. Animal Welfare Act: Art. 4 para. 2

VIII) The cantonal government writes: The system of territorial hunting thus ensures that hunting measures can be taken promptly and that there can be a quick response in the case of traffic accidents and other incidents involving wild animals. The hunting societies are well anchored at municipal level and have close contact with the population, the local authorities and forestry and agriculture.

Explanation:

This will be no different with the professional wildlife wardens, simply better in quality and more sensible. Professional wildlife management rests above all on the important cornerstones of safety, ethics and efficiency.

Alcohol on the hunt, amateur hunters over retirement age, with dangerous firearms, contamination of the environment through lead ammunition, cruel hunting methods, and so on, are on the other hand long since out of step with the times, yet under the system of territorial hunting they remain widespread to this day.

IX) The cantonal government writes: The claim by the initiators that wild animals are shy as a consequence of militia hunting and have shifted their activities to the night is not correct.

Explanation:

This too is a wholly unscientific assertion. Anyone who has ever been in an unhunted national park — for example in the Engadin — knows that animals have no innate fear of humans. Neither prey animals nor predators. That is why it most certainly does make a great difference whether a hobby hunter or a jogger disturbs the wildlife. The continual hunting pressure makes the animals shy and pushes the roe deer and red deer, which originally lived in grassland landscapes, deep into the forests, which encourages so-called “browsing damage” to forestry land (A). Intensive hunting drastically reduces the life expectancy of wild animals. This results in early sexual maturity, which causes the birth rate to rise (B). Not only does the birth rate rise, but it also undermines nature's natural selection process of maintaining particularly healthy wildlife populations and always passing on the best traits, because the amateur hunters intervene prematurely in natural processes.

Wild animals can distinguish between good people and hobby hunters. Accordingly, in unhunted areas they do not run away when they encounter, for example, motorists, mountain bikers, hikers and so on. The wildlife has completely overturned its normal behaviour because of the hunting. A roe deer, for example, is not a nocturnal animal and not a crepuscular animal either. The «disturbance» caused by leisure activists is a problem for very little wildlife, as long as they are not shot at. It is also a fact that the shyness wild animals display in the countryside has been broken down in the city. This is above all because there is no hunting in the city.

X) The cantonal government writes: The initiative causes high costs. Implementing the initiative would result in high costs. Depending on the method of calculation, costs of between CHF 20 million and CHF 30 million would have to be expected.

Explanation: 

The opposite is probably the case. If one is going to make back-of-the-envelope calculations, one should not forget the revenue side. For decades, hobby hunters and territorial hunting have been nothing but a permanently cost-intensive construction site, patchwork and bone of contention for politics, forestry, agriculture, administrations, the judiciary, health insurers, insurance companies, animal welfare organisations, environmental and nature conservation organisations, the police, the federal government, the media and so on. This effort and these costs would largely disappear with the handful of game wardens. Moreover, the Zurich hunting administration has been running deficits for years, and the renovation of the hunting shooting ranges is expected to cost tens of millions of francs.

What in the past the more than 400 hobby hunters in the canton of Geneva did not manage particularly successfully either, is today handled by 11 game wardens, who together share 3 full-time positions, alongside many other tasks, in a more exemplary and cost-effective manner. From the canton of Geneva it is also known that not only the surveillance, monitoring and so on of the 400 hobby hunters was an enormous financial burden. In terms of salary costs, the 11 game wardens today cost taxpayers a cup of coffee per year. The expense for the taxpayer is therefore no higher than before the hunting ban of 1974.

With CHF 20 – 30 million, one could probably replace the hobby hunters with professional game wardens across the whole of Eastern Switzerland. In the canton of Vaud (3,212 km²), which is almost twice as large in area, more than 50 % fewer hunters are out and about than in the canton of Zurich (1,729 km²). Yet, despite the high number of hobby hunters, the small canton of Zurich has, on a long-term average, no fewer wildlife damages than the large canton of Vaud. The hobby hunters in the canton of Zurich are overwhelmed. With the hobby hunters, the canton's compensation for wildlife damage cases rises practically every year (in 2014/15 even by 125 %) and, as a result, at the taxpayer's expense.

Since hunting is supposedly not a hobby of trigger-happy people, the hobby hunters can in future also carry out non-lethal wildlife management work.

If there were fewer problem hunters harbouring notions of exploiting nature, more peaceable people could once again devote themselves to the idea of conservation – people who care for flora and fauna with respect, decency and fairness.

XI) The Cantonal Executive Council writes: Predators such as lynx or wolves have hardly any influence on the populations. Contrary to the view of the initiators, the aim is not to stimulate the reproduction of individual species through hunting, but rather to reconcile the biological needs of wild animals with human demands in the intensively used cultivated landscape. An influence increasing the fertility of wild animals only arises in the case of excessive hunting, which would contradict the strategic objectives of hunting mentioned at the outset. 

Explanation:

Studies in various countries and at various times have demonstrated the influence of the red fox not only on the roe deer population: for the Bernese Mittelland it is estimated that a fox can prey on an average of eleven fawns in the months from May to July (D). In the canton of Zurich, however, 2,000 – 3,000 healthy foxes are shot for fun by amateur hunters every year, which is certainly not in the interests of animal welfare, wildlife biology, society, science, ecology, environmental protection, ethics, etc., but is excessive hunting.

The wolf primarily kills sick and weak animals. «They can do this better than the hunters», says Georg Brosi, head of the Office for Hunting and Fishing in Grisons. They are better wildlife regulators than hunting. From an ecological perspective, the predators are to be assessed positively.

With the settling of the lynx, the roe deer population has declined markedly in various regions of Switzerland. This too is scientifically documented. For example in the Toggenburg, Uri, Bernese Oberland or Solothurn. The roe deer and the chamois are typical prey of the lynx, so the development is not surprising. The health of the forest and the cultivated landscape is much better where there are lynx instead of hobby hunters.

XII) The Cantonal Executive Council writes: This cooperation already works excellently today; an institutionalised expert commission is not required for it. In the case of local or regional conflicts of use, forest-wildlife concepts are developed with the involvement of all the actors concerned….

Explanation: This section too is a contradiction and actually only reinforces the correct approach taken by the initiators in the text of the initiative towards professional wildlife management:

The measures to be applied are determined by an independent expert commission. This is composed on a parity basis of game wardens, wildlife biologists, veterinarians and representatives of animal welfare and species conservation organisations. The commission members are appointed every 4 years by the cantonal council.

Hobby hunters always react reluctantly to initiatives based on common sense. Animal welfare and species conservation advocates brought more wildlife protection into hunting. The abolition of leghold traps or the ban on bird hunting with limed twigs, and so on. Common sense was and is the driving force behind restricting hunting seasons and reducing the number of huntable species. To prevent the extinction of animal species, animal welfare advocates imposed on hunters the moral obligation to care for and tend wildlife. The ethics of hunters (if such a thing exists at all) traditionally always lag behind the spirit of the times.

XIII) In the run-up to the popular vote on the hunting ban for hobby hunters in the canton of Geneva in 1974, the same circles of amateur hunters, farmers and hangers-on tried to paint the devil on the wall. More than 40 years later, one can rightly say that none of their scaremongering has come to pass.

Why don't the circles involved in the canton of Zurich for once visit the hobby-hunter-free canton of Geneva and take a look (tutoring lessons) at professional wildlife management, fragmentation, costs, regulation, interaction with municipalities and the population, prevention of game damage, wildlife biology and so on, instead of arguing with frightful spectres, tea-leaf reading or falsehoods?

In the canton of Zurich too, the game wardens can and will intervene in a regulatory capacity after the acceptance of the initiative «Game wardens instead of hunters». Experience shows that everything will simply turn for the better for the animal world, the environment, nature and society.

Conclusion: „Whoever torments animals is soulless and lacks God's good spirit; however noble he may appear, one should never trust him.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Sources:

(A) Reichholf, J. H. The Truth About Hunting – Evolutionary biologist Prof. Josef Helmut Reichholf refutes hunters' lies.

(B) Servanty S., Gaillard J., Toigo C., Brandt S.& Baubet E. (2009) Pulsed resources and climate‐induced variation in the reproductive traits of wild boar under high hunting pressure. Journal of animal ecology 78.6 1278-1290.

(C) Wildlife biologist Karl-Heinz Loske https://youtu.be/6FDkHpg-j0U

(D) Fred Kurt: Das Reh in der Kulturlandschaft. Ökologie, Sozialverhalten, Jagd und Hege. Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, p. 83

(E) Statement on driven hunts by the Veterinary Association for Animal Welfare (Tierärztliche Vereinigung für Tierschutz e.V.)

Studies:

1. The red fox (brief summaries of scientific literature)
2. Hunting spreads diseases
3. Hunters spread diseases
4. Hunting does not regulate