Hobby hunters also lie when selling game meat

In the canton of Graubünden, official meat inspections were carried out in a total of 43 licensed game handling establishments (GHEs), and in six in the canton of Glarus.

During the 2018 hunting season, 57% of the approximately 8’700 animals shot during the main hunting season in Graubünden were brought to a GHE facility; in Glarus the figure was 66% of the 606 animals.

Hobby hunters policing themselves

For livestock, hygiene in processing is easy to verify: official veterinarians inspect slaughterhouses to ensure the quality of the animals meets standards. In the wild, however, no independent expert can be stationed on the lookout. Instead, the federal government has fatally delegated control to the hobby hunters themselves — the very amateurs who, year after year, commit violations of hunting laws, regulations, and so on, numbering in the thousands, resulting in reports and fines.

A poor shot, a long search, or an animal that is sick: these can all make the meat of a wild animal even less fit for consumption. If a hobby hunter notices contamination on the meat or organs, the animal must be classified as a B-grade animal. The same applies if an animal is found more than three hours after being shot, as meat hygiene will have deteriorated dramatically by then. As soon as there are signs of reduced quality, the meat must be inspected at a butcher's.

Hobby hunters decide whether an inspection is needed

Flawless specimens, so-called A-grade animals, may be sold without further examination. Meat from recreational hunting is sold almost exclusively through the catering trade or privately.

Just 8 minutes after the death of a wild animal, the blood in its veins begins to clot. Strictly speaking, what you are dealing with in under 10 minutes is something known as carrion. Uneviscerated means not bled out.

The word carrion originally also refers to the dead body of an animal that was not killed by ritual slaughter. After death, the decomposition process begins immediately in various stages.

Pride and greed prevent honest declaration

The criteria for correct classification are relatively simple, and hobby hunters should be well trained, at least in theory. The decisive factor in practice is pride and greed. This is a militant hobby in which prestige matters and nobody likes to admit mistakes. Yet that is exactly what hobby hunters would need to do. Long searches for wounded animals that were not hit properly are extremely common — not only in the canton of Graubünden. Contamination often occurs as a result of misplaced shots, for example into the entrails instead of the heart, as well as ammunition, transport, and so on. Classifying an animal as a B-grade carcass would therefore be an admission of a poor shot.

Every tenth deer in Graubünden, for example, is merely wounded rather than killed. Over the five years from 2012 to 2016, Graubünden hobby hunters shot a total of 56’403 red deer, roe deer, chamois, and wild boar. However, in 3’836 cases these animals were only wounded.

Spot checks conducted by the Graubünden Office for Food Safety and Animal Health last year revealed that red deer, roe deer, and chamois were repeatedly classified as unproblematic by hobby hunters, even though there were signs of reduced quality.

In roughly one fifth of the animals, the meat quality had been incorrectly declared. The current annual report of the Graubünden Office for Food Safety and Animal Health notes that up to 30% of wild animal carcasses were assessed incorrectly.

It is assumed that cheating occurs in the assessment of meat quality.

According to the WHO, processed game meat is carcinogenic — like cigarettes, asbestos, or arsenic.

It is absolutely essential, particularly when it comes to hobby hunters, that one looks very closely. Nowhere else is there so much manipulation through falsehoods, hunters’ tall tales, and fake news. Violence and lies are two sides of the same coin!