Recreational hunting is a declaration of bankruptcy
There are plenty of other things one can do besides hunting to protect animals and nature.
Predators have never wiped out prey animals
The relationship between predators and their prey has naturally established and proven itself since time immemorial. Not a single case has been documented in which predators have driven prey animals to extinction. The cause of the endangerment or even disappearance of populations has never been our native predators such as foxes, martens, wolves, bears, lynx or birds of prey, but always the interventions of recreational hunters in the habitats of these species.
The recreational hunting industry has a long tradition of mistreating and damaging our cultural landscape. The hunting statistics speak a clear language. Hunting usually means not less wildlife, but more births. Recreational hunting fails as population control.
Recreational hunters leave behind and cause millions in damages to agriculture and forestry every year. The demand by many animal and nature conservation organisations for a general hunting ban for recreational hunters and the call for professional wildlife management reflect the spirit of the times.
Recreational hunters think one thing, say another and do the wrong thing
The standards in hunting law have been inadequate and conducive to animal cruelty for decades. Sterilisation, for example, is also an effective and sustainable solution in cases of actual overpopulation. In the United States, deer and elk populations in certain areas are managed by animal welfare advocates through a vaccine-based birth control method. In Europe, wild boar populations and even in Africa among the large wildlife in the wilderness, immunocontraception is being used.
Hunting has failed. For decades, recreational hunters have been attempting to regulate wildlife populations, a task they have to this day not succeeded in accomplishing in any civilised manner. Wildlife living under the yoke of recreational hunters has virtually no right to a natural death or recovery from illness.
Recreational hunters are responsible for the many wildlife accidents. Roe deer and red deer are normally diurnal animals. It is only through hunting pressure that wild animals are driven into the forests to hide, where they find less food and where browsing damage consequently occurs.
Abolition of recreational hunting without negative consequences
Abolishing recreational hunting would have no negative impact on the natural balance, biodiversity, disease outbreaks, or public finances. On the contrary, the unbelievable animal cruelty perpetrated by recreational hunters would be brought to an end. According to renowned scientists and based on case studies, species diversity and biodiversity would develop significantly better without hunting.
The additional burden caused by the countless tonnes of ammunition that recreational hunters leave behind in nature is pure eco-terrorism. Lead is a toxic heavy metal. It has a highly detrimental effect on the human circulatory system and can cause acute or chronic poisoning.
Nature and our habitat cannot simply be senselessly attacked, despoiled, and exploited. Flora and fauna should be returned to people and animals as a peaceful space for recreation and coexistence. The Geneva model has demonstrated since 1974 that this is possible.
| You can help all animals and our planet through compassion. Choose empathy on your plate and in your glass. Go vegan. |
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In our dossiers on the criticism of recreational hunting gather fact-checks, analyses and background reports. 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.
