IG Wild beim Wild criticizes Thusis Fur Market 2026
How such events connect tradition, commerce and animal suffering.
Criticism of fur, pelt and trophy events in Switzerland, exemplified by the traditional fur market in Thusis (GR) on 14 March 2026.
Wild animals are not commodities for entertainment, prestige and commerce.
IG Wild beim Wild sharply criticizes fur, pelt and trophy events in Switzerland . Such events present killed wild animals as trophies, decorative objects and trade goods year after year. This normalizes an approach to wild animals that is no longer contemporary and clearly contradicts societal expectations of animal ethics and respect for fellow creatures.
The organizers market these events as tradition preservation and as contributions to so-called wildlife management. In reality, killed wild animals are the focus, whose body parts are measured, graded, awarded or traded as commodities. This practice promotes an outdated trophy culture in which the animal as a sentient individual does not count, but rather the hunting achievement and the size of antlers, horns or other 'success markers'.
Particularly offensive is that such events additionally serve as marketplaces for fur trade. Fox pelts and other hides are purchased, evaluated, sometimes awarded or raffled. This trade ignores the suffering behind each individual pelt and contributes to viewing wild animals 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 defensible.
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 logic is precisely incompatible with a modern understanding of wildlife protection .
The IG Wild beim Wild also points out that the depicted hunting practices often convey an embellished picture. In reality, missed shots, injured animals and long paths of suffering are part of the everyday reality of recreational hunting. These aspects are neither addressed at such events nor openly communicated by those responsible. The claim that trophy shows serve to analyze the status of wildlife populations 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 wild animals, whose shooting quality, tracking and suffering hardly 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 a respectful and contemporary approach to wild animals. Instead of knowledge transfer, a spectacle takes center stage that trivializes violence and propagates 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, particularly not with their abhorrent fox hunting. Such events regularly raise questions about ethical aspects, licensing practices and public impact, and they finally belong 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 wild animals 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 wild animals, professionally sound wildlife ecology and a departure from recreational hunting.