Hobby hunters also lie when selling game meat.
Since 2017, hunters in Switzerland have been required to declare the meat quality of the game they shoot. Not all of them are honest about it.
In the canton of Graubünden, an official meat inspection was carried out in a total of 43 approved game handling establishments (GHE) and in the canton of Glarus in six.
During the 2018 hunting season, 57% of the approximately 8,700 animals in Graubünden were taken to a GHE operation during the high season, while in Glarus it was 66% of the 606 animals.
Hobby hunters monitor themselves
Hygiene in the processing of farm animals is easy to check: official veterinarians inspect slaughterhouses to ensure the animals meet quality standards. In the wild, however, there's no independent expert lying in wait. Instead, the federal government has fatally placed this responsibility on the recreational hunters themselves – those same amateurs who, year after year, are reported and fined for violating hunting laws and regulations on a four-figure scale.
A poor shot, a long search, or a sick animal: these can all render the meat of a wild animal even less palatable. If the hunter discovers 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 the meat hygiene will then have deteriorated dramatically. As soon as there are signs of reduced quality, the meat must be inspected at the butcher's.
Whether an inspection is necessary is decided by the amateur hunters.
Flawless specimens, so-called A-grade animals, may be sold without further inspection. Meat from recreational hunting is practically only sold through restaurants or privately.
The blood in a wild animal's veins begins to clot just 8 minutes after death. Strictly speaking, after less than 10 minutes, it's already carrion. This excludes the animal having not bled out.
The word "carrion" originally also referred to the dead body of an animal that was not killed through ritual slaughter. After death, the decomposition process begins immediately in various stages.
Pride and greed prevent honest declarations.
The criteria for correct classification are relatively simple, and hobby hunters should be well-trained, at least in theory. The decisive factors in practice are pride and greed. It's a militant hobby where prestige is important, and nobody likes to admit mistakes. But that's precisely what hobby hunters have to do. There are plenty of long searches for wounded animals that weren't hit properly, not just in the canton of Graubünden. Contamination often results from misplaced shots, for example, into the intestines instead of the heart, ammunition, transport, etc. Classifying an animal as a "B-category" would therefore be an admission of a poor shot.
In Graubünden, for example, one in ten deer is only wounded rather than killed. In the five years from 2012 to 2016, recreational hunters in Graubünden killed a total of 56,403 deer, roe deer, chamois, and wild boar. However, in 3,836 cases, these animals were only wounded.
Random samples taken by the Graubünden Office for Food Safety and Animal Health last year revealed that deer, roe deer and chamois were repeatedly classified as safe by hobby hunters, even though there were signs of reduced quality.
The meat quality was incorrectly declared in approximately one-fifth of the animals. The current annual report from the Graubünden Office for Food Safety and Animal Health states that up to 30% of wild animal carcasses were incorrectly assessed.
It is assumed that cheating is taking place when assessing meat quality.
According to the WHO, processed game meat is carcinogenic, like cigarettes, asbestos, or arsenic.
Especially among hobby hunters, it is absolutely essential to pay very close attention. Nowhere else is there so much manipulation with falsehoods, tall tales, and fake news. Violence and lies are two sides of the same coin!
