Hobby Hunter Simon Meier: Fake News About the Wild Boar Enclosure

As part of animal welfare work, a discussion arose on 8 October 2017 in the Facebook group of the affected municipality about the planned wild boar enclosure in the canton of Zurich.

On 9 October 2017, a hobby hunter and fake news specialist by the name of Simon Meier from the association Wildtier Schweiz posted the following:

Why not come and visit, enjoy a tour here or attend one of the many restaurants. I think the residents of Elgg understand the purpose of hunting. Especially when it comes to efficient wild boar hunting……Even the Swiss Animal Protection organisation supports the training of hunting dogs on wild boars for animal welfare reasons.

What the unsuspecting readers do not yet know at this point is that hobby hunter Simon Meier does not himself come from Elgg and has most likely never been there. The final sentence is virtually unmatched in its brazenness and falsehood, and once again confirms our critical scrutiny of the hunting community as a whole. Right at the start of the discussion, Simon Meier manages to fit two lies into just a few sentences.

The Swiss Animal Protection organisation (STS) recently published a position paper stating what they think of the training and use of hunting dogs in Switzerland — namely, absolutely nothing (with the exception of tracking wounded game).

On 10 October, the following becomes known about the wild boar enclosure in the canton of Zurich:

Contrary to the claim made in the Landbote of 6.10.2017 by Urs Philipp, head of the cantonal fisheries and hunting authority in the canton of Zurich, («that they had consulted with local animal welfare organisations and had already found a resident veterinarian«), the Zurich Animal Protection organisation does not actually support the wild boar enclosure either! There can therefore be no talk of any consultation whatsoever!

The Zurich Animal Protection organization rejects the facility because 1. it causes stress and risk of injury to wild boar and dogs, and 2. because animal welfare advocates fundamentally consider the approach of such facilities to be wrong: Animal welfare advocates are convinced that driven/battue hunts cause significantly more animal suffering than targeted shots from a stationary blind, due to the many missed shots, and 3. such facilities are available in neighboring countries.

Fake-news specialist Simon Meier immediately speaks up again, attempting to mislead readers with foreign paragraphs and the like.

What is interesting is that a scientific study on precisely this topic was conducted in Germany (doctoral thesis by Dr. med. vet. Ralf Erler), in which stress hormone levels (cortisol) in the saliva of wild boar were tested in a wide variety of situations, with the following result: When the examination conditions set out in the Joint Position on the welfare-compliant behavioral conditioning of hunting dogs in wild boar enclosures are observed, §1 and §3 of the Animal Welfare Act as well as §19/13 of the Federal Hunting Act remain unaffected. Based on the results presented, the use of wild boar in wild boar enclosures for the behavioral conditioning of working hunting dogs does not produce distress and is therefore not relevant from an animal welfare perspective.

Research into this «scientific study» revealed the following:

Prof. Dr. Hans Wunderlich, mentioned several times in the thesis, who co-manages the enclosure in Zehdenick, is a hunter, hunting dog breeder, and until recently was! only the animal welfare officer of the Association of Working Hunting Dogs. He is a strict advocate of training hunting dogs on live animals (duck, fox, etc.) and was later even dishonorably expelled from the hunting association, partly because of this work.

Dr. Ralf Erler, the author of the dissertation on hunting dog training in wild boar enclosures, is a veterinarian in the practice of Prof. Dr. Hans Wunderlich. One would have to be naive not to see the conflict of interest. It is therefore unsurprising that the dissertation came out in favor of wild boar enclosures and that this training method was granted a superficial animal welfare «clearance.»

The Wildlife Research Institute at the TiHo Hannover has been and continues to be co-directed by hobby hunters. Prof. Dr. Klaus Pohlmeyer, who led the institute until May 2008, was simultaneously a former chairman of the Hunters’ Association of Lower Saxony.

The «scientific study» was therefore conducted by hobby hunters for hobby hunters and is far from being classified as an independent and professional study.

On October 11, 2017, new posts appeared from hobby hunter Simon Meier containing the following statements:

I am convinced that the majority of game wardens who hunt in areas where wild boar are present have already been in wild boar enclosures with their dogs.

And:

And I know various game wardens who are not active in the canton of Zurich. I also know game wardens from Geneva. And believe me — they also participate in driven hunts. Either partly in their own areas, or they are invited by friends elsewhere.

Gottlieb Dandliker, the head of game wardens in Geneva, says on this matter:

"Regulation is carried out exclusively by game wardens; no amateur hunters are involved. For these ‘Gardes de l’environnement,’ safety, ethics, and animal welfare play a major role: ‘We cannot afford a single accident.’ Animal welfare means above all the avoidance of wounded animals. ‘That happens en masse in the surrounding area, in Vaud, in France. Driven hunts are conducted there, animals are shot and wounded, you find them or you don’t — or only a week later,’ reports the fauna inspector. ‘Stress situations like those in driven hunts — where the animals know: that was a truly terrible thing — do not occur in our form of regulation.’ Leading sows are not shot — for ethical reasons. Because when the nursing mother is absent, the young die. The lead sows and the large boars are also not shot. ‘By doing so, we hope to achieve stability within the sounder and in the animals’ behavior,’ explains Dandliker. ‘We regularly have groups of orphaned wild boar piglets here from the French hunt, who have lost their mother and come into the villages.’ Such leaderless piglets can of course cause great damage. And it is well known that wild boar reproduce uncontrollably after the lead sow has been shot.

Simon Meier replies:

I am not claiming that the Geneva game wardens organize driven hunts in their own territory. But for example in the canton of St. Gallen, where there are hunting associations and regional game wardens, they regularly participate in driven hunts organized by hunting associations in their area. I know a game warden who, in addition to his professional duties, also voluntarily serves as a hunting district leaseholder and hunting supervisor. I am invited every year to a driven hunt where a Bernese game warden joins the hunt.

The problem with hobby hunter Simon Meier is that he repeatedly and manipulatively tries to achieve his goals through falsehoods and dangerous half-truths. In the canton of Geneva, the system with game wardens has been working to everyone's satisfaction for over 40 years, without all the fabricated stories put forward by the former director of Wildtier Schweiz.

And anyone who thinks that problems can only be solved with brute force has serious educational and psychological deficiencies. Fox hunting, for example, makes no sense according to experts and case studies — it is even counterproductive. Scientific studies confirm this abundantly.

Dossier: Hunting Administration St. Gallen:

• Dominik Thiel: Wolf hunter at public expense — a department head as a security risk for wildlife protection
• Psychology of hunting in the canton of St. Gallen
• Hunting season until New Year’s Eve: culling pressure instead of wildlife management
• Patent hunting as a solution to red deer conflicts?
• Hunting administration St. Gallen: wolf management without science and without credibility
• The permit to shoot a wolf in the canton of St. Gallen was unlawful
• Dumbing down the public in the canton of St. Gallen
• Office for Hunting and Nonsense in St. Gallen modernizes hunting education
• St. Gallen wants to regulate wolf pack at Gamserrugg
• Controversy surrounding a Swisscivil servant at the wolf hunt in Russia
• «Experts» in St. Gallen end wolf regulation for this winter
• The rotten apple in the St. Gallen hunting administration
• Lying hunter became department head in the canton of St. Gallen
• St. Gallen: Stop the fox and badger massacre
• Are FOEN and thehunting administrations still operating responsibly?
• How hobby hunter Simon Meier leads people down the wrong track