Magdenau: Farm encourages children to hunt mice to combat boredom

Tormenting animals to beat boredom: Due to the coronavirus crisis, schools in Switzerland are currently closed.

As a result, the farm play group «Heufäger» run by the Jud-Peterer family in Magdenau advertised that schoolchildren could help with the hunting of mice .

Nicole Jud-Peterer, who runs a dairy farm with her husband Marcel and their three children Lio (12), Enya (10) and Neva (6) just past the hamlet of Magdenau on the road towards Wolfertswil, considers this a «meaningful» activity to combat boredom in these exceptional circumstances. There is no sign of social distancing or staying at home during the current coronavirus crisis.PETA Switzerland has sharply criticized the proposal. Catching and killing animals teaches children that animals are nuisances and that it is acceptable to kill them. The animal rights organisation therefore wrote to the family at the end of March — a letter that has so far gone unanswered — urging them to stop trivialising and promoting animal suffering as a leisure activity. The organisation believes the play group has a responsibility to educate children about the positive qualities of mice and to promote recreational activities that do not require any animal to suffer.

«It is scandalous that the farm playgroup in Magdenau is encouraging children to kill sentient beings. Children should be taught to act with empathy and to understand animals as sentient and suffering fellow creatures», said spokesperson Nadja Michler on behalf of PETA Switzerland. «Moreover, killing the mice is unnecessary, since the presence of predators such as foxes or martens naturally regulates the population. Mice too are part of nature and have an equal right to use their habitat.»

Stopping Fox Hunting as a Solution to the “Mouse Plague”

Particularly in agriculture, mice are sometimes perceived as an alleged “nuisance” or “pest.” PETA Switzerland points out that there are more appropriate measures than killing millions of these highly intelligent animals each year with poison or traps. Above all, the animal rights organization strongly recommends banning fox hunting across the board — because studies show that each fox feeds on around 3’000 to 5’000 mice per year. Hobby hunters pursue these useful animals with traps, rifles, and den hunting. Foxes not only feed on mice, but also help ensure the survival of their prey species by catching weak and sick animals, thereby immediately eliminating sources of disease. In addition, other natural enemies of rodents could be encouraged to deter them, such as birds of prey by installing perch poles. Recreational hunting as population control fails here as well.

Mice are fascinating animals

PETA Switzerland calls for giving children exciting knowledge about animals rather than wrongly attributing negative characteristics to them. Mice, for example, can form friendships and are very affectionate. These extremely playful, curious rodents raise their young together in “group nests.” Just like humans, they too feel lonely and can become anxious or stressed when they have no company. In addition, they have a complex communication system and communicate primarily through high-frequency sounds in the ultrasonic range that are imperceptible to humans. To win over their chosen ones, mice even chirp like birds.