Recreational hunters carry out horrific massacre of wolves
In just three days, recreational hunters slaughter 216 wolves in Wisconsin. 20% of the entire population wiped out. A scandal that was entirely foreseeable.
It took trigger-happy recreational hunters in the US state of Wisconsin just three days to slaughter around 20 percent of the wolf population.
216 wolves in three days
216 animals fell victim to the bloodbath, which took place at the end of February. Experts estimate that there were between 1’000 and 1’200 wolves in Wisconsin before the recreational hunt.
The regulatory authority tried to prevent the worst by setting a maximum kill quota of 119 animals at the very last moment — but by then the recreational hunters were already in the forest, blazing away with enthusiasm. They by no means targeted only old or sick animals, but shot every wolf that crossed their path, including numerous juveniles.
Devastating consequences for the wolf population
««It is precisely at the end of February and the beginning of March that many wolf packs are raising young. Breeding-capable males and pregnant females have now been shot indiscriminately», says Dr. Adrian Treves, Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin.
««If we now allow everywhere what happened in Wisconsin, it will set us back 40 years», says Collette Atkins of the Center for Biological Diversity.
Numerous environmental organizations are now calling on President Biden to place the wolf back on the list of specially protected animals under federal law and put an end to the shooting frenzy.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. 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.
