Hesse: Nature photographer discovers badger without a head
Killing during the closed season.
Last Sunday, a nature photographer discovered a badger near a hunting blind close to Steffenberg-Oberhörlen whose head had been severed.
After the eyewitness informed the police, they arranged an on-site appointment with the hunting leaseholder and the witness. By that time, however, the dead animal had already been removed — only traces of blood and tufts of fur remained. PETA filed a criminal complaint with the Marburg public prosecutor's office yesterday against the unknown hunter for violations of the Animal Welfare Act and the Federal Hunting Act.
In addition, the animal welfare organisation filed a notice of an administrative offence with the hunting authority of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district. In Hesse, badgers may not be hunted from 1 November to the end of July, primarily to protect their young from starvation. PETA is calling on Hesse's Environment Minister Priska Hinz to grant badgers a year-round closed season and to put a complete stop to the pointless killing of these animals.
“Many hunters regard the forest as a lawless space, because oversight is virtually impossible. The killing of animals such as badgers, foxes, and martens must finally be banned completely in Hesse — they are being killed purely for fun.”
Peter Höffken, specialist adviser at PETA.
Legal assessment
The hunter's actions are punishable under Section 17 No. 1 of the Animal Welfare Act. During the closed season, which in Hesse runs for badgers from 1 November to the end of July of the following year, these animals may not be hunted. Under hunting law, this also constitutes an administrative offence (Section 39 para. 2 no. 3a of the Federal Hunting Act).
Just at the end of April, a hunter in the Waldeck-Frankenberg district shot a fox and a raccoon in front of a wildlife photographer. PETA also reported that case to the Kassel public prosecutor's office.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. 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.
