Massacre of 3’000 Foxes in the Canton of Bern
The Canton of Bern proudly announces: 3,000 foxes shot. What is being sold as a hunting “success” is in reality nothing other than a massacre of sentient beings, without any ecological or social benefit.
Behind every number stands an individual: a fox that dies miserably from bullets or shotgun pellets.
Many do not die immediately. They drag themselves wounded into their dens, bleeding out in agony or dying over days from internal injuries.
- Young animals are left behind, starving wretchedly because their mother was shot in the field.
- Social structures are torn apart. Foxes are highly social animals that live in family groups. With every kill, their fabric is ripped asunder.
- Suffering instead of stewardship: The hobby hunters boast of “fair chase” and ethical hunting, yet in reality hunting means for foxes: fear, panic, death.
No canton shoots more foxes than Bern. According to statistics, hunters killed 3,180 red foxes last year. Only roe deer are shot more frequently. However, since most foxes are not used but end up in carcass collection points, fox hunting is particularly controversial among hunting critics. For example, the animal rights organisation «IG Wild beim Wild» criticises fox hunting as a «pointless massacre and animal cruelty by hobby hunters», writes the Berner Zeitung today.
The Myth of the Necessary Cull
The official justification is a fairy tale: the population must be regulated, otherwise diseases would spread and small game would be threatened. Yet:
- Scientifically refuted: Culls actually increase birth rates and attract new animals. The massacre is a never-ending cycle.
- The natural role of the fox: It keeps mouse populations in check, feeds on carrion and thus ensures hygiene in forest and field.
- Scapegoat of humanity: It is not foxes that threaten biodiversity, but hobby hunters, the agroindustry, pesticides, and the destruction of habitats.
- Scientific literature: Studies on the red fox
- Hunters spread diseases: Study
- Hunting promotes diseases: Study
- A ban on pointless fox hunting is long overdue: Article
- Luxembourg extends fox hunting ban: Article
- Small game hunting and wildlife diseases: Article
The hunting machinery, the pressure of tradition, and supposed conservation arguments overshadow any scientific reflection in many cases.
From an animal welfare perspective, such hunting practices can hardly be justified either. The killing of thousands of foxes out of tradition, for “wildlife management,” or as a ritual raises ethical questions. Has every vixen, dog fox, or juvenile been assessed with regard to its individual contribution to life? Most likely not.
Hunting as bloody leisure entertainment
The naked truth: This hunting does not serve nature, but the hobby hunters. They kill because they can, because tradition permits it, because they want to savour their power over animals.
- A hobby at the cost of lives: While animals die in agony, hobby hunters speak of “score sheets” and “success.”
- No respect for life: Wild animals are degraded to targets, their existence reduced to a number in a hunting report.
- Social support is dwindling: More and more people are recognising that hobby hunting is not conservation, but a relic of a bloody leisure culture.
The figure of 3’000 shot foxes is not a hunting success, but a declaration of moral bankruptcy. It is high time that we as a society ask ourselves: How much longer are we willing to allow wild animals to be sacrificed for the bloody hobby of dubious individuals? – IG Wild beim Wild
Ethical catastrophe
3’000 dead foxes — that is 3’000 lives, extinguished for nothing. No scientific benefit, no ecological necessity, no moral foundation.
- A sentient animal is not a shooting target.
- Those who kill in this way betray every principle of compassion and respect.
What would really be needed
- An immediate end to fox hunting. Foxes regulate themselves.
- Protect habitats instead of shooting — more habitat structures, fewer pesticides, and small game and ground-nesting birds will recover.
- Ethics over tradition: We need a nature policy based on compassion and science, not on shot and cartridges.
Dossiers: Fox in Switzerland: The most hunted predator with no lobby | Fox Hunting Without Facts: How JagdSchweiz Invents Problems
