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Hunting

Hobby hunters of the old generation

They call themselves game wardens or professional hunters and ruminate about the old days, when everything seemingly was better. Those who considered themselves both important figures and almost heroes, since in a village the “respected persons” were the mayor, the priest, the doctor and the huntmaster — often also the forester. Animals were objects — also

Editorial Wild beim Wild — 24 August 2023

Game wardens ruminate about the old days

They call themselves game wardens or professional hunters and ruminate about the old days, when everything seemingly was better.

Animals were objects and wildlife was merely good meat. That is why hobby hunters in the former GDR were so important — they had access to the coveted wild game meat.

«Hunting, rooted in a centuries-old culture that inspired poets and thinkers, has abandoned numerous values and norms.»

Game Warden Dieter Bertram, former Federal Chairman of Professional Hunters

Animal ethics and animal rights

Have these game wardens ever heard of animal ethics and animal rights? Are animals truly not sentient beings to them — beings that as such ought to be respected? Why are cats and hunting dogs and other animals pampered as pets, while other animals — wild animals — die a miserable and needless death in horrific killing traps?

Game Warden Dieter Bertram rightly criticised in May 2021 that even seasoned blood-tracking dog handlers were abandoning their recovery work, because it had become unbearable to find dead sows being suckled by their piglets.

Hobby hunting is a non-culture

Why are slavery, witch-hunting, cannibalism or apartheid no longer considered tradition, yet murder, manslaughter, violence and cruelty to animals against defenceless beings in hobby hunting is supposed to be tradition?

Violence as a desirable state would accordingly be described as a culture of violence — which in common linguistic understanding represents a negatively directed inversion of the concept, thus describing a non-culture, an absence of culture.

You can help all animals and our planet with compassion. Choose empathy on your plate and in your glass. Go vegan.

IG Wild beim Wild

The IG Wild beim Wild is a non-profit advocacy group committed to the sustainable and non-violent improvement of the human-animal relationship, with a particular specialisation in the legal aspects of wildlife protection. One of our primary concerns is to introduce a contemporary and serious wildlife management system in the cultivated landscape, modelled on the Canton of Geneva — without hobby hunters, but with principled game wardens who truly deserve the title and act according to a code of honour. The monopoly on the use of force belongs in the hands of the state. The IG supports scientific methods of immunocontraception for wildlife.

More on the topic of hobby hunting: In our dossier on hunting we compile fact-checks, analyses and background reports.

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