459’284 foxes killed without reasonable justification
For Wildtierschutz Deutschland, recreational hunting is any hunting carried out by recreational hunters without nature conservation objectives, assessment or oversight, or without a reasonable justification within the meaning of animal protection law.
The death of a wild boar shot for consumption is entirely consistent with current animal protection law and the values of the majority of our society. The death of a fox that gives the shooter “an almost unbeatable feeling of joy” (quote from the forum of the hunting magazine «Wild und Hund») is quite another matter. The same applies to tens of thousands of male foxes killed during the winter mating season, whose cubs have significantly lower chances of development and survival with only one parent.
Current hunting laws permit “liberal” — that is to say, arbitrary — hunting of foxes. Arbitrary, because it is left entirely to the individual hunter’s discretion whether any given animal is killed or not. In the 2020/21 hunting year alone, national hunting statistics record 459’284 red foxes killed across Germany.
Fur and meat unusable
Reynard may not be used for consumption, and at present perhaps only one percent of killed animals have their winter fur processed. The «Fellwechsel» project — subsidised with substantial public funds by the recreational hunters’ lobby to promote the use of fox pelts — has failed spectacularly. Who still buys fur, after all?
With regard to the pretext of species protection, which is often put forward by recreational hunters as well as by political authorities, one must note that despite intensive hunting over the past two decades, not a single species that recreational hunters claim to protect has even come close to stabilizing its population. On the national Red Lists, the brown hare is classified as endangered, and the grey partridge as critically endangered. Species conservation can only be carried out effectively under nature conservation supervision.
Fox tapeworm as a pretext
Another pretext for justifying the cruel fox hunt is the containment of fox diseases. Rabies has long been eradicated in Germany and in western and central European countries thanks to the distribution of vaccine baits. Alveolar echinococcosis is one of the rarest zoonotic diseases in Europe. In Germany, an average of approximately 40 people per year are affected.
In fact, the fox tapeworm is entirely unsuitable as a justification for fox hunting, as hunting foxes cannot reduce their rate of infestation with the fox tapeworm, but has demonstrably been shown to increase it. On the other hand, the infestation rate can be drastically reduced through the use of deworming baits. The Recreational hunting fails as population control.
In joint statements with the German Animal Welfare Federation, the League Against the Abuse of Animals, and the German Legal Association for Animal Protection Law, the organizations call for hunting law to be more closely aligned with the public interest.
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More on the subject of recreational hunting: In our dossiers on the criticism of recreational hunting gather fact-checks, analyses and background reports. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
