Hobby hunters and their enjoyment of animal cruelty
According to a whistleblower report, a hobby hunter in the Rhein-Lahn district repeatedly set his “hunting dog” on an injured wild boar during a search in December 2023.
Amateur hunter sets dog on wild boar
A video also sent to PETA shows the amateur hunter repeatedly urging his hunting dog to bite the animal with the words "catch it" and "go ahead".
The dog managed to inflict numerous bites on the wild boar. According to the report, this animal cruelty is not an isolated incident; this behavior by the hobby hunter in question is already known in hunting circles.
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PETA files a criminal complaint
The animal rights organization subsequently filed a criminal complaint with the Koblenz public prosecutor's office in February for violation of the Animal Welfare Act and informed the hunting authority of the Rhein-Lahn district about the matter.
PETA is demanding that the person responsible have their firearms license and hunting license revoked. In light of this incident, the animal rights organization is also reiterating its appeal to the German government to introduce a ban on recreational hunting .
"The distressing video from Rhineland-Palatinate confirms once again what eyewitnesses have repeatedly told us: Even the existing weak regulations for 'ethical' killing are often disregarded in recreational hunting due to a lack of monitoring in the forest. Because hunting laws have barely been revised for decades due to resistance from recreational hunters, many forms of animal cruelty are perfectly legal, such as trapping, hunting in burrows, or training hunting dogs on live foxes in so-called artificial fox dens. The only way to comprehensively protect wild animals from cruel attacks is for the federal government to ban recreational hunting."
Peter Höffken, specialist advisor at PETA.
Hobby hunting is counterproductive, according to experts.
Recognized wildlife biologists agree that there is no ecological need for recreational hunting. According to the renowned biologist Prof. Dr. Josef H. Reichholf, the animal populations living in the forest are naturally regulated by environmental factors such as weather, food availability, and disease.
English experts also concluded that, for example, fox populations regulate themselves due to food availability and social factors.
In wild boar populations, recreational hunting destroys the age and social structures of the animal populations, leading to increased reproduction among the survivors.
Population losses are thus quickly offset or even overcompensated for by offspring and immigration. The approximately 400,000 recreational hunters in Germany are contrasted with only about 1,000 professional hunters, primarily forestry officials.
