Hobby Hunters Spread Diseases Through Hunting Practices

Once again, a study has proven: anyone who fears diseases such as Lyme disease or the so-called fox tapeworm should speak out clearly against hunting.

Fewer foxes, fewer fox tapeworms, and therefore less risk of infection for humans.

At first glance a plausible conclusion — but upon closer analysis, nothing more than hunters' tall tales, as several international studies confirm.

Hobby hunters therefore do not help in the detection and control of wildlife diseases and epidemics. They thus do not protect livestock, pets, or people — on the contrary, they actually put them at risk. In virtually every area, hobby hunters are consistently among the real contributors to the very problems they claim to address.

Hobby hunters are a social plague. Especially in densely populated areas, the introduction of a modern wildlife management system is needed to restore law and order. Fewer hobby hunters are a strong guarantee of less density-related stress (burnout, etc.) for wildlife. Wildlife under less stress show fewer signs of disease and behavioral problems — much the same as with humans.

In the canton of Vaud (3,212 km²), which is almost twice the size in area, there are, for example, over 50% fewer hobby hunters active than in the canton of Zurich (1,729 km²).

With the ongoing spread of Echinococcus multilocularis in Europe, health authorities are seeking the most effective solution to protect the population. Fox hunting by hobby hunters has — supposedly, according to hunters' tall tales, guaranteeing a healthy wildlife population — mutated into a form of pseudo-health management.

A study from France scientifically investigated over 4 years whether hunting is a useful measure against the fox tapeworm (or to protect people from infection). For this purpose, fox hunting was significantly intensified in an area of just under 700 square kilometers near the city of Nancy.1,700 hours were spent shooting foxes at night, including from vehicles, which led to a 35% increase in the hunting bag. This area was then compared with another area where hunting had not been intensified.

The result is clear:

1. The fox population was NOT reduced by the drastically intensified hunting in the test area.
2. The fox tapeworm spread in the intensively hunted test area instead of being reduced: the infection rate even rose sharply from 40% to 55%, while it remained constant in the comparison area during the same period.
3. Instead of hunting, which is evidently not only pointless but even counterproductive — and which, according to the study, is also very time-consuming, cost-intensive, and ecologically as well as ethically questionable — the treatment of foxes with deworming bait is recommended when necessary. As other studies (e.g., from the Starnberg district) have impressively demonstrated, these deworming baits can effectively reduce the fox tapeworm infection rate in foxes to nearly zero percent.

Summary of the original study:

With the ongoing spread of Echinococcus multilocularis in Europe, sanitary authorities are looking for the most efficient ways of reducing the risk for human populations. Fox culling is one particular tool that has recently shifted from predation control to population health management. Our study aims to assess the effectiveness of this tool in limiting E. multilocularis prevalence in fox populations in France. During four years, a culling protocol by night shooting from cars was implemented around the city of Nancy (eastern France) representing ∼1700 h of night work and ∼15,000 km driven. The 776 foxes killed represented an overall increase of 35% of the pressure on the fox population over 693 km2. Despite this consequent effort of culling, not only did night shooting of foxes fail to decrease the fox population, but it resulted in an increase in E. multilocularis prevalence from 40% to 55% while remaining stable in an adjacent control area (585 km2). Though no significant change in age structure could be described, an increase in immigration and local recruitment is the best hypothesis for population resilience. The increase in prevalence is therefore considered to be linked to a higher rate of juvenile movement within the culled area shedding highly contaminated faeces. We therefore advocate managers to consider alternative methods such as anthelmintic baiting, which has been proven to be efficient elsewhere, to fight against alveolar echinococcosis.

The publication of the new study bears the fitting title “Echinococcus multilocularis management by fox culling: An inappropriate paradigm“:

A similar study has only recently shown that hunting foxes increases the risk of contracting Lyme disease through ticks.

With these two publications, we now have two additional recent scientific studies that clearly demonstrate that hunting foxes does not combat disease but instead increases its spread and the risk of infection — including for humans. Fox hunting therefore serves the common good in no way whatsoever, as hobby hunters repeatedly and falsely claim; rather, it represents a considerable health hazard for both people and animals.

Switzerland is a European hotspot

A study published in July 2025 in the renowned specialist journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases published overview study (Medical University of Vienna et al.) has for the first time collected Europe-wide case numbers: Between 1997 and 2023, 4’207 cases of alveolar echinococcosis were documented in 40 countries. Germany, France, Austria, and Switzerland alone accounted for 2’864 cases — around 68 percent of all European diagnoses. Switzerland has the highest case rate per capita after Lithuania. In Switzerland, infections rose from a handful of annual diagnoses in the 1990s to an average of 70 cases per year today.

Important context: The study explicitly notes that part of the increase may be attributable to improved medical awareness and better diagnostics. At the same time, it cites high fox populations and more intensive wildlife-human contact as additional possible causes. What the study does not mention — and what the hunting lobby fails to disclose — is that the only proven effective measure remains deworming with praziquantel bait. In the Starnberg district (Bavaria), the risk of infection was reduced by 97 to 99 percent through consistent deployment of deworming bait. Fox hunting, on the other hand, has — as the France study already cited in 2017 clearly demonstrates — increased the infestation rate, not reduced it.

The pattern is clear: Rising case numbers are reflexively used by the hunting lobby as an argument for more fox culls. Science says the opposite: more hunting = more stress = more dispersal movement by young foxes = greater spread of the parasite. The solution lies in deworming, not in shooting.

→ More on this: Hobby hunting promotes disease — Lyme disease and ticks