Hobby Hunter on Video: "We Want to Have Fun"

YouTuber and recreational hunter Benjamin Bube incited his dog against a raccoon and filmed it before he deleted the video again.

The animal rights organization PETA was faster and filed a criminal complaint. The video footage is a rare document of what hobby hunting means in practice: killing as recreational entertainment.

"Make a bag and have fun"

At a driven hunt in Ödelsheim (Kassel district, Hesse), a camera accompanied Benjamin Bube and his companions. One of the participants expressed the goal of the event with disarming candor: "Why are we here? We want to make a bag and we want to have fun." When asked in return "Fun killing?" comes the affirmative response: "Yes, that's the point of the exercise."

The fact that hobby hunting also receives ecclesiastical blessing makes the scene utterly surreal: The Ödelsheim pastor blessed the hunting party with the words "Weidmannsheil and God's blessing" before, as the video shows, active animal cruelty ensues.

The dog as a weapon

Then comes the pivotal scene that Benjamin Bube deleted shortly after publication, but the community was faster: A raccoon flees. Bube incites his hunting dog "Egon" with a rousing cry against the animal: "Get after him, grab him, get him." The dog attacks.

What one sees in this moment is legally unambiguous problematic: German animal welfare law (TSchG §17) prohibits inflicting substantial pain, suffering or harm on animals without good reason. Inciting a dog against a fleeing animal already in mortal fear violates this provision in PETA's assessment. A shot would be the legally prescribed killing method, not an incited dog.

Wild boar, shot, left to the dogs

The video documents another case that, according to the video description, also comes from Bube's hobby hunting routine: An already-wounded wild boar in the thicket is left to dogs that continue to attack it. The commentary: "Slow, painful death with massive suffering" and "great panic breaks out". What the images show is uncontrolled violence, not a targeted shot, not a "merciful" death, but chaos.

According to the Federal Hunting Act (BJagdG §22a), recreational hunters are obligated to observe the principle of "fair chase," the requirement to kill wild animals as quickly and painlessly as possible. What the video shows stands in direct contradiction to this.

Deletion as admission of guilt?

Notably, Benjamin Bube deleted the video immediately after publication. Legally, deleting a video is not a free pass: once material is secured, as in this case by PETA and the community, it can serve as evidence. PETA's criminal complaint is proceeding.

The pattern is familiar: In the cat video case in Rhineland-Palatinate, the recreational hunter involved initially tried to downplay the incident. The Simmern District Court nevertheless convicted him in 2021, imposing a five-year hunting ban and 5,000 euros in fines. And in the Vorpommern-Rügen case, where a recreational hunter similarly incited a dog against an injured wild boar, PETA also filed a criminal complaint.

"Who oversees recreational hunters?"

The video itself poses this question and it remains largely unanswered in Germany. Hobby hunting is regulated in a fragmented manner across federal states, with oversight often falling to district hunting authorities that lack personnel and financial resources. The Geneva model, without hobby hunting since 1974 and instead with professional wildlife officers, demonstrates that state wildlife control without this practice is possible and effective.

Benjamin Bube's video is not a slip-up. It is a window into a subculture that understands killing as recreational entertainment and obtains ecclesiastical blessing for it.

More on wildbeimwild.com:

Cruel practices of hobby hunting · Hunting dogs: deployment, suffering and animal welfare · Hobby hunters and their enjoyment of animal cruelty · Hobby hunting and animal welfare: What the practice does to wildlife