Once Again, Shame on the Recreational Hunters
In Scotland, various tourism companies offer wild goat hunting. The animals, which have no natural predators, are classified there as an invasive, non-native species, and hunting them is not illegal. It is believed that more than 3’000 of the animals now live in herds across Great Britain, having been introduced by Stone Age humans around 5’000 years ago
In Scotland, various tourism companies offer wild goat hunting. The animals, which have no natural predators, are classified there as an invasive, non-native species, and recreational hunting of them is not illegal. It is believed that more than 3’000 of the animals now live in herds across Great Britain.
Images posted by TV presenter Larysa Switlyk on her Instagram profile are now causing an uproar. She posed next to a dead female goat, grinning vacuously into the camera in typical recreational hunter fashion. “Beautiful wild goat here on the Isle of Islay in Scotland.” And: “It was so much fun! They live on the edge of the cliffs and are masters at hiding.”
Politicians Stepped In
The British Brexit Secretary of the Scottish Government, Mike Russell, told BBC Scotland that the pseudo-huntress’s posts were “horrifying” and called for an immediate ban on goat hunting on the island. “Seeing people in camouflage gear with high-powered sniper rifles celebrating the killing of goats is simply unacceptable.”
Judy Murray, mother of tennis star Andy Murray, also saw the images and tweeted: “Shame!” She urged the government to intervene.
And Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said the government would review the current situation and consider a corresponding change in the law. More on crime and recreational hunting and on the psychology of recreational hunting.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In our dossiers on the criticism of recreational hunting gather fact-checks, analyses and background reports. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
