New president of the Grisons hobby hunters: Benjamin Hefti wants to filter criticism and save bird hunting

On Whit Saturday, the delegates of the Grisons Cantonal Licence Hunters' Association in Disentis elected Benjamin Hefti as their new president.

The 42-year-old farmer from Zizers, who has served for eight years on the Grisons Grand Council for the SVP Fünf Dörfer, takes over the office from Tarzisius Caviezel. What sounds like a routine generational handover is in fact a political signal: the Grisons hobby hunting lobby is bracing itself against any say from the non-hunting public.

A network of agriculture, politics and hobby hunting

Hefti combines offices that have long been closely intertwined in Grisons. A farmer with a holding in Zizers, the leased Alp Languard in the Engadine, and a 40-hectare Maiensäss above Says. Alongside this, he is president of the citizens' council, a member of the audit committee of the Grand Council, and president of the livestock insurance cooperative of the Grisons Rhine Valley. For almost twenty years he has also taken part in the high hunt. This bundling of land ownership, cantonal politics and the hobby hunting lobby is no isolated case in the canton, but a structural feature.

Hours on the cable winch: what is recovered is not meat, but carrion

During the high hunt, Hefti uses his Maiensäss as a base for killing red deer, roe deer and the occasional chamois. Because of the steep terrain, he often has to recover the dead animals with a cable winch, which by his own account can take hours. What sounds like a folkloric detail in the «Südostschweiz» profile is in truth a central hygiene and animal welfare problem of hobby hunting.

In no Swiss slaughterhouse would such a delay between killing and processing be permitted. There, clear rules apply: stunning, bleeding within a few seconds, swift evisceration, cooling of the carcass within a short time to just a few degrees. This chain protects against explosive bacterial growth in the warm carcass, against contamination of the muscle meat with stomach and intestinal contents, and against health risks for consumers.

During the high hunt this chain essentially collapses entirely. An animal that still flees after the shot, collapses somewhere in steep terrain, lies there and is then dragged into the valley on a winch for hours is, in food-safety terms, no longer a fresh carcass by any stretch. The flesh stays warm, the stomach contents spread, bacteria work unchecked. What in a regulated slaughterhouse would be disposed of as carrion ends up on the plate or for sale as so-called game meat from hobby hunting. The legislator applies the highest hygiene standards to commercial meat production, and virtually none to hobby hunting.

Calibre deregulation as a door-opener for a broader legal revision

At the heart of Hefti's political agenda lies the so-called calibre deregulation. To date, the Grisons hunting act prescribes a minimum calibre for the high hunt. According to part of the hobby hunting community, this requirement is to be dropped. Anyone who embarks on such a revision, however, opens the entire legal framework. Hefti knows this, and in the portrait he names bird hunting as the area in which he wants to fight against corrections. The particularly contested practice is thus to be defended precisely at the moment when the law is up for discussion anyway.

Who decides what counts as permissible criticism?

Outwardly, Hefti presents himself as open to dialogue. In reality, however, he defines from the outset which criticism he is willing to accept. Constructive participation is important, he says, but must remain at a certain level that allows people to still look each other in the eye afterwards. The message is clear: anyone who fails to meet this self-imposed threshold has no place in the discourse. This gatekeeping reflex is also evident in one of the few open jabs Hefti permits himself. On contested points he wants to stand up for the hobby hunters, "so that we are not overruled by those who think differently". Anyone from the non-hunting public who demands a say is, in this reading, not a legitimate counterpart but a threat to be reined in.

The strategy of noiselessness, conceded by the president himself

Until now, the catchphrase of governing quietly behind the scenes was an outside interpretation. In the portrait, Hefti now confirms it bluntly himself: many things can be settled in the background without much fuss. Translated, this means: the concerns of the hobby hunting community should be pushed through as quietly as possible before the broader public takes notice. With around 6,200 members, the association wields considerable political leverage. At its head now stands an SVP cantonal councillor who knows how to operate that lever. At the same time, the board is being refreshed generationally: with forester Simon Zeltner (born 1998) as shooting master and lawyer Chaspar Vital (born 1989) as finance chief, the lobby is positioning itself for the longer term.

Women on the board: diversity as a PR instrument

Strikingly prominently placed: the portrait notes that two women, Martina Just (wildlife biology) and Sarah Luisa Cadotsch (public relations), serve on the seven-member central board. Hefti speaks of an enrichment, and the "Südostschweiz" immediately turns this into a central message in the teaser. It is worth taking a closer look: of all things, public relations — the task of polishing the image of hobby hunting in an increasingly critical population — lies in female hands. Diversity is staged here less as equal participation than as a communicative tool of a lobby that senses it must actively defend its acceptance in the canton.

Trophy mentality in modern packaging

In the portrait, Hefti himself provides a remarkable image of his practice. Anyone who already sees the trophy hanging on the wall before the shot has lost. What is meant is an attitude of humility towards the game. In reality, however, the sentence reveals that the trophy as the end product is taken for granted — just with the requisite decency. The staging as a modest, nature-loving worker overlays a practice that declares wild animals to be prey and ornament.

What is at stake

A loosening of the calibre rule, the insistence on continuing bird hunting, and a presidency that wants to filter public criticism according to self-imposed standards are not matters of detail. They directly concern how Grisons deals with its wild animals circumvents and how far hobby hunting may continue to dictate its own rules against the will of a growing majority. Hefti's election is therefore less a question of personnel than a political signal: hobby hunting in Grisons is gearing up against growing criticism from the public and against the demand for greater animal rights.