Hobby hunters and nature conservation: An irreconcilable contradiction

The hunt has failed.

For decades, recreational hunters have tried to regulate wildlife populations, but to this day they have failed to do so in a civilized manner. Recreational hunting and nature conservation are like lemon butterflies folding lemons.

Across the country, farmers, winegrowers, and forest owners complain of extensive damage to crops caused by wild animals, despite receiving compensation. Hunting is therefore ineffective and counterproductive. Even taxpayers have to foot the bill for hunters' hobby. Hunting doesn't solve the root cause of the problem; rather, it is part of and contributes to the problem in nature conservation.

Today, there are far more sustainable forms of damage prevention , such as electric fences, gates, and visual, scent-based, and acoustic deterrents. Fortunately, killing animals by hobby hunters is no longer necessary as part of deterrent measures.

Many people concerned with nature conservation are often misled by the misconception that humans must limit populations of wild animals like deer or red deer because recreational hunters have eradicated their natural predators. However, it has been scientifically proven for decades that ecological factors such as food, habitat, and climate are the primary drivers of dynamic animal populations, not predators.

A recent long-term French study has proven that hunting significantly increases the reproduction rate of wild boar. Scientists led by Sabrina Servanty compared the reproduction of wild boar in a heavily hunted forest area in the Haute-Marne department with that of a less heavily hunted area in the Pyrenees over a period of 22 years. The results, published in the renowned "Journal of Animal Ecology," show that fertility in wild boar is considerably higher under high hunting pressure than in areas with little hunting. Furthermore, intensive hunting leads to a significantly earlier onset of sexual maturity – before the end of the first year – meaning that even young female piglets can become pregnant. The average weight of wild boar reaching sexual maturity is also lower under high hunting pressure. In areas with few recreational hunters, wild boar reproduction is significantly lower, and sows reach sexual maturity later and at a higher average weight. (cf. Servanty et al., Journal of Animal Ecology, 2009) This study proves that the rapid reproduction of wild boar populations depends not only on food availability but also on intensive hunting. Areas with little or no hunting have far fewer wild animals than those that are hunted. Unnaturally large or small wild animal populations are man-made and created by flawed hunting practices and practices.

For example, over 20,000 red foxes are senselessly shot every year in Switzerland. Rabies has long since been eradicated through bait vaccination. Hunting has completely failed in this regard.

Few recreational hunters understand that wildlife populations regulate themselves dynamically based on factors such as food supply, territoriality, climate, disease, resources, and social and physiological conditions, without human intervention, provided they are not decimated by hunting. Hunting pressure and other factors, however, increase reproduction rates in affected animal populations. This can be observed not only in wild boar, foxes, deer, stags, and pigeons, but in every species (species preservation, survival instinct, population balance, etc.). Most recreational hunters do not accept the presence of predators that share their food sources. They tend to deer, stags, and chamois much like domestic animals and then want to harvest as much as possible. They believe the wild animals belong to them and that they have a right to prey and kill them. Recreational hunters have perfected the art of contempt for animals. Thousands of tons of shot pellets are scattered throughout Switzerland. Hobby hunters poison animals, game, soil, and groundwater with their lead ammunition. Hunting reduces biodiversity and natural diversity. Lead poisoning from contaminated carrion is the most common cause of death for protected birds.

The claim frequently made by recreational hunters that they can regulate animal populations by shooting them is ecologically false; they only decimate the populations. Recreational hunters are poor substitutes for extinct predators because they often shoot not sick or weak animals, but irrationally, or only males, to obtain a trophy. If recreational hunters truly practice conservation, they do so independently of their hunting activities. Hunting has always been a barbaric exploitation of nature.

We need sustainable approaches, not hobby hunters, in nature conservation.

Wild animals, whether free-living or in captivity, can cause problems similar to human overpopulation. Militantly shooting wildlife, as hobby hunters have practiced until now, is unethical, unwise, unsafe, and increasingly unacceptable to the public. Hunters often operate illegally as well.

Sustainable population control is needed to prevent the shooting of animals. Immunocontraception is a simple and inexpensive option.

Immunocontraception is used today to control animal populations in the wild and in zoos. Unlike hormonal methods, immunocontraception has virtually no side effects. To date, immunocontraceptive applications have been successfully tested on over 100 different animal species, including wild horses, deer, wild boar, bison, squirrels, dogs, cats, African elephants, and others. Studies have shown that, for example, deer treated in this way remain infertile for up to five years.

Immunocontraception interrupts the normal reproductive cycle of animals through vaccination. The vaccine contains specific protein components of the so-called gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). Mammals need this hormone, produced by the hypothalamus, to produce sex hormones. Pigs treated with the vaccine develop antibodies that bind to and neutralize GnRH. As a result, the pigs produce hardly any sex hormones such as estrogen or testosterone. Both male and female animals become infertile.

Australian pig farmers have been using this vaccination method for some time to make the meat of their domestic pigs more palatable. After about four months, the treated boars no longer exhibit any reproductive cycles. Studies show that the vaccinations leave no harmful residues in the meat. And the method is gentler than castrating the boars. Therefore, there would be no objection to treating wild boars with it as well.

A successful demonstration of immunocontraception was achieved, for example, in New York's Fire Island National Park between 1993 and 2010 in deer. Several hundred deer were successfully treated there with PZP (Porcine Zona Pellucida vaccination), and the birth rate was reduced by approximately 70%.

PZP is a highly effective, reversible, and safe method of birth control for pregnant animals, with no significant (short- or long-term) health side effects. The vaccine does not enter the food chain. Its application is particularly advantageous because it eliminates the need to capture and anesthetize the animals. The wild animals are vaccinated via their feed.

Field trials in other areas, prompted by hunting failures, resulted in a halving of the deer population within five years. The health of the deer population improved because the deer density decreased and each deer had access to higher-quality food. Females no longer have to endure the energy-draining process of pregnancy every year.

As humans increasingly encroach upon areas inhabited by wildlife, the ideal scenario would be to respect the animals and refrain from interfering with natural population control mechanisms. However, because recreational hunters lack this respect, militant hunting and the use of weapons are now the reality. Hunting is always a form of warfare.

Most recreational hunters are anachronistic and, upon closer analysis, subscribe to a mindset of pure violence. Hunters are militant. They eliminate what they consider inferior creatures and readily kill animals for a trophy. This is all accompanied by primitive and sectarian rituals and alcohol. Hunters manipulate, disrupt, torture, and destroy. Their actions and hunting methods are sometimes so brutal and bestial that recreational hunters themselves don't dare to speak about them publicly for fear of reprisals from within their own ranks.

Immunocontraception is a scientific tool for an ethical approach to living beings.

Interest Group Wild at Wild

The IG Wild beim Wild (Wild with Wild) is a non-profit advocacy group dedicated to the sustainable and non-violent improvement of the human-animal relationship. The group also specializes in the legal aspects of wildlife protection. One of our main goals is to implement modern and responsible wildlife management in the cultural landscape, modeled on the system used in the Canton of Geneva – without recreational hunters, but with reputable game wardens who truly deserve the title and act according to a code of ethics. The monopoly on the use of force should remain with the state. The IG supports scientifically based methods of immunocontraception for wild animals.