Recreational hunter shoots sled dog Mara
There had been repeated complaints about him: he allegedly forced horse riders into the roadside ditch with his car, threatened a police officer with a weapon, or fired at ducks over the heads of passers-by.
77-year-old faces charges in Hassfurt
The recreational hunter in the final stages of his faculties, Hermann D., 77 years old, faces charges in Hassfurt, Bavaria, for allegedly shooting a sled dog named Mara.
The incident occurred while Mara's owner, Birgit Brunner, a tourist from Austria, was paddling on a river on 18 June 2022. She heard a shot and found Mara in agonising pain. A .22 calibre projectile had torn through her liver, spleen and lungs.
The recreational hunter fled the scene, and Mara died shortly afterwards. Hermann D. claims he shot the dog because it was chasing a hare, but witnesses contradict this, pointing out that Mara had a hip injury and could not run far, reports bild.de.
Fundamental questions to be addressed
But it is not only the death of the female dog Mara that is of interest to the court. The trial also raises a fundamental question: what is a recreational hunter permitted to do, and what is he not? The Animal Welfare Act provides for the “killing of a vertebrate without reasonable cause” (§ 17 TierSchG) a fine of between 5 and 360 daily rates or a custodial sentence of between 1 month and 3 years.
Recreational hunting and crime against animals
The Mara case is not an isolated incident. Time and again, pets are killed by recreational hunters. The senile recreational hunter is charged with a violation of the Animal Welfare Act and could face a custodial sentence of up to three years. The trial is still ongoing; the verdict is expected on 20 November.
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.
