Criticism of the 2026 Obwalden Fälimärt in Giswil
How such events combine tradition, commerce and animal suffering.
Criticism of fur, pelt and trophy events in Switzerland, exemplified by the traditional Obwalden Fälimärt in Giswil (OW) on March 14, 2026.
Wild animals are not commodities for entertainment, prestige and commerce.
IG Wild beim Wild sharply criticizes fur, pelt and trophy events in Switzerland in the strongest terms. Such events present killed wild animals year after year as trophies, decorative objects and trade goods. This normalizes a treatment of wild animals that is no longer contemporary and clearly contradicts societal expectations regarding animal ethics and respect for fellow creatures.
The organizers market these events as traditional preservation and as a contribution to so-called conservation management. In reality, killed wild animals stand at the center, whose body parts are measured, graded, awarded prizes or traded as commodities. This practice promotes an outdated trophy culture in which not the animal as a sentient individual matters, but rather hunting performance and the size of antlers, horns or other 'success markers'.
Particularly offensive is that such events additionally serve as a marketplace for trading in pelts. Fox furs and other hides are purchased, evaluated, sometimes awarded prizes or raffled off. This trade ignores the suffering behind each individual pelt and contributes to viewing wildlife as raw material. While Politics and society are taking steps towards restricting the fur trade, Switzerland continues to celebrate a commercialized form of recreational hunting that is ethically hardly justifiable.
Such markets are not folklore, but part of a system that commodifies animal bodies. When pelts are traded at unit prices, animal suffering becomes a calculation. This exact logic is incompatible with a modern understanding of Wildlife protection .
The IG Wild beim Wild also points out that the depicted Hunting practice often conveys a sanitized picture. In reality, missed shots, injured animals and prolonged suffering are part of recreational hunting's daily routine. These aspects are neither addressed at such events nor openly communicated by those responsible. The claim that trophy shows serve to analyze wildlife population status is hardly tenable. Scientifically supported monitoring instruments do not require displayed skulls and antlers that primarily serve self-presentation. Trophies are a material expression of killed wildlife, whose shooting quality, tracking and suffering rarely appear in the official picture.
From an animal welfare perspective, it is also concerning that children and young people are introduced to such events without being taught respectful and contemporary treatment of wildlife. Instead of knowledge transfer, a spectacle takes center stage that trivializes violence and promotes a romanticized hunting world.
Weapons dealers, optics manufacturers, hunting accessories, hunting trips, raffles for hunting kills abroad: A hunting-industrial violence system emerges in which kills and animal bodies are part of a marketing system.
Those who kill senselessly do not protect, and it serves no benefit to civilized society. Hobby hunters thus do not ensure healthy or natural wildlife populations, especially not with their abhorrent fox hunting. Such events regularly raise questions about ethical aspects, licensing practices and public impact, and they finally belong to be fundamentally reviewed politically and socially.
The IG Wild beim Wild calls on responsible parties in municipalities, cities and cantons to fundamentally reconsider such events. A civilized society does not need competitions where dead Wildlife are presented as successes, and it does not need a market where pelts are traded like arbitrary commodities. What is needed instead is a respectful understanding of wildlife, professionally grounded wildlife ecology and a departure from recreational hunting.