Liechtenstein Adopts Report and Motion to Amend the Hunting Act
At its meeting on 6 July 2021, the government adopted the report and motion to the Landtag concerning the amendment of the Hunting Act.
At its meeting on 6 July 2021, the government adopted the report and motion to the Landtag concerning the amendment of the Hunting Act .
State Wildlife Wardens and Intensive Hunting Zones
The centrepiece of the proposal is the establishment of a state wildlife warden service as well as the option to designate so-called intensive hunting zones and manage them in a targeted manner. This implements key elements of the package of measures aimed at improving forest regeneration.
Further amendments relate to the issuance and validity of hunting licences, proof of shooting accuracy, and cost-sharing for wildlife damage prevention measures. In addition, persons who have reached the age of 70 are no longer to be counted towards the required minimum or maximum number of lessees in future.
Wildlife Wardens Support Ungulate Population Reduction
Excessively high wildlife pressure prevents the desired regeneration of forests and leads to a reduction in protection against natural hazards. The wildlife warden service is therefore intended to support hunting associations in reducing ungulate populations.
In addition to hunting support measures, the state wildlife warden service is to fulfil further tasks: surveying wildlife populations, resolving conflicts with wildlife, responding to wildlife accidents, and carrying out game warden policing duties.
Holistic Implementation Required
With state wildlife wardens, an important prerequisite is created to effectively implement further measures for improving forest regeneration. These include minimizing disturbances, establishing wildlife rest zones, and promoting habitat connectivity and wildlife corridors.
Criticism: No forestry measures
With this proposal, the government places the measures for forest regeneration exclusively with recreational hunting. Forestry measures are evidently not planned.
Mario Broggi, the former director of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, criticized: “Accessible forests are being plundered, and three quarters of the timber harvest is being burned for energy.»
Former head forester Felix Näscher also writes: “For several years now, an unlawful forestry practice has been rampant, far removed from any notion of sustainability — the result of a lack of forest-ecological understanding, silvicultural incompetence, and the pathological hunting phobia of certain individuals.»
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier The Role and Criticism of Recreational Hunters we shed light on the training, power and self-image of recreational hunters. The scientific evidence is presented in the overview Studies on the Effects of Recreational Hunting.
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.
