Recreational hunter (88) shoots cat after bite to the back of his head
After his daughter's cat bit him and drew blood, he reached for his hunting rifle and shot the animal. The 88-year-old now stood before a court.
In September 2023, an 88-year-old man was sitting in the garden in the Sarganserland region with his great-grandchild, who was playing nearby.
His daughter's eight-year-old cat jumped onto his lap. As usual, he began to stroke it — but it bit him hard on the hand.
«She was always a gentle animal, but suddenly she bit me on my left hand.» That is what the defendant told the court, according to ‘20 Minuten’. The man reportedly bled heavily and had to seek medical treatment.
It was said to be the first time the cat had behaved in such a way. The man subsequently feared for the safety of his great-grandchild and decided to take a drastic step: the recreational hunter fetched his pistol from the house and shot the cat in the back of the head. The shot is said to have been instantly fatal.
Criticism from the Office for Consumer Protection and Veterinary Affairs
The Office for Consumer Protection and Veterinary Affairs appeared as a private plaintiff. It accused the 88-year-old of deliberate animal cruelty, multiple violations of the Animal Welfare Act, and violation of the Weapons Act.
The argument: killing by a shot to the head is not professionally appropriate for either domestic or farm animals. It could happen that “dealth does not occur immediately.” Instead, the man could have had the cat put down by a veterinarian.
Defence calls for acquittal
The defence counsel for the 88-year-old pleaded for an acquittal. “The cat was dead immediately, it did not suffer,” he argued. The judge accepted this account and acquitted the man.
According to «20 Minuten», he said: «You are permitted to kill animals even without reason — that is also stated in the Animal Welfare Act. He had wanted to protect his six-month-old great-grandchild.»
In conclusion, the judge emphasized: "He is a hunter, he dispatched the cat to the hereafter with a clean shot. In my view, that is not a criminal offence, which is why I acquitted him."
Further articles
More current hunting accidents and documented criminal offences involving recreational hunters can be found here: Chronicle of hunting accidents and criminal offences at Abschaffung der Jagd as well as in the Chronicle of hunting accidents in Germany, Austria and Switzerland at PETA.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. The scientific evidence is presented in the overview Studies on the Effects of Recreational Hunting.
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.
