PETA demands a ban on recreational hunting
At the 2021 Federal Hunters' Day, PETA is calling for a ban on recreational hunting and cruel hunting practices such as trapping and earth hunting in Germany.
Tomorrow, the annual Federal Hunters' Day will take place.
On the occasion of the event, which this year is being held digitally due to COVID-19, PETA is criticising the recreational hunting community. They continue to uphold even the most cruel hunting practices, such as trapping, earth hunting, and the training of dogs using live wild animals. PETA is calling on policymakers to ban recreational hunting as well as cruel hunting practices in the coming legislative period.
In the new legislative period, policymakers have the opportunity to finally take responsibility. Recreational hunting causes immeasurable suffering in our forests, including through tragic accidental shootings of people. In earth hunting, hobby hunters use dogs to drive foxes and badgers out of their burrows, then lie in wait at the exit for the terrified wild animals and shoot them.
Peter Höffken, policy adviser at PETA
Killing animals as a “hobby” incompatible with the Animal Welfare Act
In Germany alone, people who hunt as a “hobby” kill up to half a million foxes every year. Due to frequent missed shots, many of the animals die slowly and in agony, or are literally crushed in kill traps. Yet there is no justification for the widespread hunting of predators, either from a wildlife biology or a public health perspective.
The more than 390,000 people who hunt in their spare time in Germany are faced with only around 1,000 professional hunters – primarily forestry officials. A representative Forsa survey conducted on behalf of PETA confirms that 49 percent – a majority of the population – also rejects recreational hunting.
Recreational hunting demonstrably unsuitable for population management
Scientific studies show that hobby hunting is not suitable for permanently regulating wildlife populations. Researchers have demonstrated that female animals reach sexual maturity earlier in hunted wild boar populations, for example, which increases the birth rate. Prof. Dr. Josef Reichholf, a renowned biologist at the Technical University of Munich, also sees no need for hobby hunting from a wildlife biology perspective: animal populations living in forests regulate themselves through environmental factors such as weather, food availability, and disease.
