A Framework for Hunting Criticism

Economic-Ecological Framework

• Agricultural industry, forestry, climate change, and hunting on one side, and the urban sprawl encroaching on untouched natural landscapes on the other, bear primary responsibility for the drastic reduction in biodiversity.

• The intensive agrochemical farming industry is destroying wildlife habitat; surviving animals are being gradually pushed to the brink of extinction by unchecked hunting.

• The forestry industry is oriented toward maximizing timber profits. The catchphrase «forest before wildlife» defines the situation — forest animals are the disruptive factor in this industry. Forest damage caused by browsing is often used as a pretext to violently reduce wildlife populations to a level defined by economic interests. Nature is being transformed into an open-field industrial complex and open-air slaughterhouse for hobby hunters.

Psychological-Pathological Component

• Fields and forests are partly in private ownership and partly in state ownership. The state is constitutionally the guardian of public assets; wildlife therefore belongs to all people (res nullius) and not to a minority of hobby hunters who have appointed themselves as the sole users of wildlife. “Nature and animal protection” through hobby hunting is virtually nonexistent; trophy culture and the pleasure of shooting take precedence. Hunting is a largely pleasure-driven and wide-ranging form of species terrorism.

• Hunting is the last legal opportunity to kill with a weapon without legal consequence in peacetime. It is the last opportunity to indulge the killing instinct without restraint. Gun ownership — as stark examples demonstrate — always carries the risk of misuse.

• This environment is predominantly populated by mentally like-minded individuals who are severely lacking in the capacity for empathy. A glance at hunting magazines or social media confirms this and regularly reveals a disturbing pleasure in killing and a cult of weapons.

• The neurologist and multiply awarded psychoanalyst and author Paul Parin explained in his widely noted book «The Passion of the Hunter» (Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 2003): «Real hunting cannot exist without premeditated killing. Those who hunt with passion want to kill. Hunting without murder is a concept that negates itself … And because hunting involves passion, greed, lust — a fever, in essence — it is about … sex and crime, about sexual desire and crime of every kind, about murder and lust murder.»

Juridical-Structural Component

• Hunting is embedded in structures that run counter to democratic principles. Hobby hunters are often the heads of cantonal hunting authorities, deciding matters that concern their own interests when it comes to the interpretation, application, and sanctioning of hunting-related affairs. These hunting-friendly structures cover the full spectrum of society — from tradespeople to politicians — forming a network that guarantees advantages and dependencies for those involved.

• As a result, a near-total absence of the rule of law prevails in the forests, and official oversight of hunting is virtually nonexistent. Animal welfare has been delegated back to the hobby hunters, so that an autonomous, self-governing, and sectarian system of interests has established itself within the state.

• Official hunting-related decisions regarding many species are not made on the basis of sound scientific investigation, data, or necessity, but are subject to the populist calculations of the issuing authority. Alternatives to hunting are almost never considered.

• At the behest of the agricultural and hunting lobby, large-scale driven hunts and beating hunts (movement hunts) are increasingly being conducted, whereby every form of movement hunting contains elements of animal cruelty solely from the fact that shots are fired inaccurately and nearly indiscriminately. Under the law, «conservation» refers to the protection and care of wild-living animals, whereas «hunting practice» refers to the pursuit, capture, and killing of game. This distinction between «conservation» and «hunting practice» is made clear by the fact that the duty of conservation remains with the landowner, even when the right to hunt is transferred to the hunting cooperative.

• For certain species, no sound statistical data whatsoever exists For example, fox and bird hunting is subject to no restrictions through bag limits, leaving individual hobby hunters free to chase, torment, hunt, and kill as they please. This carte blanche gives rise to an unprecedented wildlife terrorism by empathy-free anti-animalists.

• The established social structures of many wildlife species, especially wild boar, are being shattered by hobby hunters. Lead animals that control reproduction rates are barely present anymore in sounders and groups. Population dynamics have increased enormously due to the considerable and ever-growing hunting pressure.

• Foxes, which are monogamous and territorially faithful in the wild, are forced to relocate in search of new mates, as pairs are torn apart by hobby hunters. Thus, through the destruction of animals' social structures, not only are new pair bonds formed, fertilizing every female and thereby increasing the birth rate, but diseases are also spread more widely — diseases that hunting is supposedly meant to combat.

• The hunting of birds, especially duck hunting, produces an indiscriminate selection of animals unlike anything else. A bird that has escaped persecution in one hunting territory during its cross-border migrations faces the same harassment at its next and subsequent stops. These animals are left defenseless against pleasure-driven animal selectors. Disasters in the social structure of affected animal groups and in the species composition of entire bird populations are thus inevitable. Through the use of shotgun ammunition, which frequently causes non-immediately fatal embedded shots with internal injuries, hundreds of thousands of wounded animals suffer a slow and agonizing death each year.

• Absolutely decadent and morbid are hunting trips abroad, in which both endangered and often strictly internationally protected species, as well as captive-bred animals (such as lions), are killed out of pure bloodlust by pathological animal killers.

Ethical and political dimension

• Animals are individuals capable of experiencing joy and suffering, pain and happiness, who possess rights and must be respected as fellow creatures. Hunting is in the starkest possible contradiction to an enlightened, progressive understanding of nature and animals.

• Humanity has appointed itself — with no justification grounded in scientific logic — with the authority to decide, without moral qualms, over the interests of all other beings (species), enslaving, killing, breeding, and altering them at will.Hunting is just one small facet of this gigantic system of human-made nonsense and oppression.

• Today's hunting law emerged from National Socialist ideology and remains essentially in force to this day. Unmistakably fascistic elements appear — such as language, masculinity, unity, strength, rituals, symbols, and the “regenerative” power of violence, redefined as violence against animals. The excessive appeal to tradition alone supports this thesis.

• Fascistic ideology often reinforces feelings of «racial» superiority and ethnic persecution. In the context of hunting, the human dimension has transformed into an animalistic one and morphed into a form ofanti-animalism comparable to human racism. Driven by humanity's — and especially the hunting human's — delusion of biological superiority over the animal world, afascistic species selectionism has emerged that has spiraled into a merciless terrorism against wild animals. Toward certain animal species (such as foxes or neozoa) and defined enemy groups (so-called «harmful vermin» and «predatory game»), a genocidal pattern of behavior is clearly recognizable.

• Anyone who obtains a hunting license receives two things at once: a license to kill and a license to grow stupid.Many hobby hunters are gun enthusiasts and are also active in shooting clubs. On top of that, hobby hunters commit a strikingly high number of criminal offenses — with only the tip of the iceberg making it into the media. A look at hunting statistics also reveals the full extent of the culture of violence within this milieu.

Hobby hunters: a natural disaster

In the chaos in which nature finds itself after decades of so-called stewardship by hobby hunters, the proportion of endangered species is higher in no other country in the world than in Switzerland. These contract killers have been creating ecological imbalance in the cultivated landscape for decades, with sometimes dramatic consequences (protective forests, disease, agricultural damage, and much more). Over a third of plant,wildlife and fungal species are considered endangered. The Switzerland also ranks last in Europe when it comes to the elimination of protected areas for biodiversity. It is precisely these circles of hobby hunters with their lobbying who have been responsible for decades — through politics, media, and legislation — for this state of affairs. They are the ones who notoriously block timely, ethical improvements in animal welfare and sabotage serious animal and species protection. Hobby hunters regularly oppose more national parks in Switzerland, because their concern is not nature, biodiversity, species protection, or animal welfare — but rather the pursuit of their perverse, bloody hobby.

Did you know …

• that in Switzerland innocent young wolves are being killed?
• that hobby hunters lie about the assessment of 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 hobby hunters?
• that the fair chase ethics of hobby hunters are diametrically opposed to animal welfare law and amount to nothing more than a mirage?
• that hunting is war, where animal competitors are simply eliminated?
• that there are countless illegal and unmarked hunting blinds in our natural spaces, some so rotten that they pose a danger to children and could cost people 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, around 120,000 perfectly healthy roe deer, red deer, foxes, marmots, and chamois are killed each year, mostly without purpose?
• that because of hobby hunters, it has become nearly impossible today to live in harmony with wildlife or even catch a glimpse of wild animals?
• that shotgun blasts make hares cry out like small children, and tear apart the entrails of "shot" roe deer and red deer so that they leave a trail of blood for trackers to follow during the search?
• that the claim by hobby hunters that the cruel wildlife massacres are necessary to regulate animal populations has been scientifically refuted?
• that hobby hunters openly admit that hunting is about "the pleasure of killing" and "the joy of taking prey" — a pathological passion?
• that hobby hunters have no sixth sense and yet regularly claim they only shoot sick and weak animals, which is of course not true in practice?
• that hobby hunters travel abroad for trophy hunting, far from any species protection and hunting regulations, and that there are even Swiss hobby hunter travel agencies for such mindless hunting pleasures?
• that the vast majority are not legitimate professional hunters, but pursue hunting as a hobby, sport, and leisure activity, which is not morally justifiable and actually contradicts the Animal Protection Act?
• that 99.07% of civilized people in Switzerland are not hobby hunters, meaning only 0.3% of hobby hunters take pleasure in these bloody activities?
• that these wildlife killers do not hunt based on scientific justifications?
• that protected species should actually not fall under hunting law, because hobby hunters are overwhelmed by species conservation and repeatedly shoot animals listed on the Red List — such as lynx, wolf, hare, partridge, quail, etc. — for the fun of it?
• that hobby 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 hobby hunter can fire even a single shot, that preventing this is the goal, and that this is arguably the central idea behind wildlife stewardship, care, and hunting management plans?
• that with wild boars (and foxes), normally only the lead sow gives birth, but due to her being shot, all female animals within the sounder reproduce, and that this is also why we have a wild boar population explosion?
• that grazing animals — deer, roe deer, etc. — originally lived primarily as diurnal animals in fields and meadows, like goats, sheep, and cows, and not in the forest?
• that the wolf is vitally important for the long-term health of wild ungulates, because it hunts sick or weak animals with incredible precision, for example, and is thereby far superior to hobby hunters?
• that foxes, after being senselessly hunted, usually end up in the trash?
• that foxes today are hunted primarily so that there are more hares, etc. for hobby hunters’ frying pans? But that the fox’s diet consists of hares to less than 10%, and that it would never catch a healthy hare?
• that in animal welfare, you cannot oppose hobby hunters with gentleness alone — street festivals, prayer chains, etc. — (you need a tough wedge for a tough log)?
• that hobby hunters, with their hunters' tall tales engage in a disrespectful mockery of living beings?
• that it is frowned upon to shoot large game at feeding stations or during mating season, yet hobby hunters have no scruples about doing exactly this to their prey competitor, the fox?
• that in some cantons hobby hunters go out hunting solely for the tender meat of a young animal?
• that hobby hunters shoot pregnant mother deer in front of their young, or target only young animals during the rearing season (post-special hunt)?
• that hobby hunters poison the environment, nature, humans, and animals with their ammunition?
• that bestiality, barbarism, cruelty, bloodshed, and senseless suffering cannot be considered cultural heritage in a civilized society?
• that hobby hunters shoot approximately 10’000 roe deer fawns every year?
• that hobby hunters, during harsh winters, lure starving animals with food only to shoot them in a treacherous and cowardly manner?
• that hobby hunters send agitated dogs into burrows to eliminate foxes and badgers (den hunting)?
• that hobby hunters lure peaceful living beings into box traps, where they may suffer for days awaiting their killer, or subject animals to an often hours-long death struggle (trap hunting)?
• that hobby hunters cowardly ambush and kill or injure peaceful wild animals while they sleep or bask in the sun, using state-of-the-art precision weapons?
• that hobby hunters support awards, fur markets, prize ceremonies for trophy cults, trophy shows, the fur trade, and so on?
• that hobby hunters place firearms in the hands of underage schoolchildren and practice killing with them?
• that hobby hunters often carry out their cruel acts in isolation, which encourages animal cruelty?
• that hobby hunters seriously wound many wild animals, and the victims often suffer for hours under immense pain and fear until a tracking dog finds them and they are shot?
• that hobby hunters (aside from vivisection) inflict the most suffering and abuse on animals, including through the manner in which they kill?
• that the hunter's so-called love of animals and nature takes no joy in the existence of the beloved object, but rather aims to possess the beloved creature body and soul, culminating in making it prey through the act of killing?
• that hobby hunters actively promote browsing damage through hunting pressure, particularly on predators such as foxes, lynxes, and wolves?
• that hobby hunters are responsible for antisocial, unethical, and open the door to unchristian behavior ?
• that hobby hunters withhold normal, natural wildlife observations and interactions from the public?
• that there is no greater torment product, more contaminated with ammunition residue, than venison?
• that there is no uniform nationwide regulation in Switzerland regarding vision tests, shooting practice, etc. for hobby hunters?
• that there is no psychological character assessment for hobby hunters?
• that there is no alcohol ban for hobby hunters when they are shooting at animals with their weapons?
• that hobby hunters intrude into educational institutions to push their hunters' tall tales and their culture of violence on children?
• that a court in Bellinzona recently confirmed that hunting clubs promote virtually 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 Graubünden alone, more than 1,000 complaints and fines are issued against hobby hunters every year?

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 particular focus on the legal aspects of wildlife protection. One of our main concerns is to introduce a contemporary and professional wildlife management system in the cultivated landscape, modeled on the canton of Geneva — without hobby hunters, but with upstanding wildlife wardens who truly deserve the title and act according to a code of ethics. The monopoly on the use of force belongs in the hands of the state. The IG supports scientific methods of immunocontraception for wildlife.