Appenzell Ausserrhoden: Stop the Fox and Badger Massacre

On Saturday, 23 November 2019, the high hunt for deer and chamois as well as the low hunt for roe deer in Appenzell Ausserrhoden came to a close.

The roe deer hunt ran from 2 September to 2 November. The hobby hunters failed to meet their target cull numbers. To protect the reforestation areas established to address the forest damage caused by Storm Vaia in the Stein and Hundwil area, the wildlife wardens will therefore still cull individual roe deer within the affected zones. In total, 444 roe deer have been killed so far.

During the deer hunt, which was carried out in two hunting periods from 2 to 23 September and from 6 to 11 November 2019, 58 animals were slaughtered. This is the highest red deer tally in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden since hunting statistics began in 1933. In addition, 11 chamois were killed throughout the canton during the high hunt, according to the Office for Spatial Planning and Forestry.

Still open are the hunts for badgers (until 15 January 2020), wild boar (until 31 January 2020), as well as the pass hunt for stone martens and carrion crows (until 15 February 2020) and foxes (until 29 February 2020).

Facts Instead of Hunters’ Tales

In Switzerland, the so-called pass hunt takes place in various cantons well into winter (until the end of February). In these treacherous forms of hunting, foxes, badgers, martens and others are lured, habituated and deceived during the winter hardship period using bait (cat and dog food, hunting offal, entrails, etc.) — all just to kill them senselessly and for sport.

Wildlife often leave a clearly visible trail known as a “pass.” This is also the origin of the term “pass hunt,” in which hunters lie in wait for an animal along its regular path. Hobby hunters conceal themselves near various feeding stations (bait sites) that they have prepared in order to shoot the wildlife when a predator arrives.

Shots are fired from bedrooms, alpine huts, and small pass shelters fitted with a camouflaged window — regardless of whether the target is a healthy male fox or possibly even an expectant mother.

The hunters’ motto:"The only good fox is a dead fox"" is contemptuous of animals. Foxes are not aggressive and do not attack people. Foxes are beautiful animals. This can hardly be called hunting. The hunters are once again distinguishing themselves as despoilers of nature and animal abusers. This produces wildlife browsing damage, violates the Animal Welfare Act, and on top of it all, the taxpayer foots the bill.

In this way, the hunting community of Appenzell Ausserrhoden makes no contribution to achieving a natural balance between wildlife, forest, and field.

There is no legal culling plan or population monitoring for foxes. Fox hunting resembles a shortcut ecology practised by insufficiently trained hunters.

For the IG Wild beim Wild, it is counterproductive to give cantons more powers under the hunting law — quite the contrary. They cannot handle the responsibility, are overwhelmed, are insufficiently trained as hobby hunters and decision-makers, and they lie. Moreover, they already enjoy more than enough latitude. Current examples include the head of the hunting and fishing authority in the canton of Zurich, who recently introduced night hunting of foxes on the pretext that foxes transmit rabies. As we know today, it was animal-friendly vaccine baits that ultimately eradicated terrestrial rabies — it has been considered eradicated in Switzerland since 1998 and across large parts of Europe!

Violence begins in Appenzell Ausserrhoden where knowledge ends

In general, fox populations that are hunted less also produce fewer offspring. Human presence always generates conflicts with wildlife sharing the same habitat. Human beings cause far greater damage — particularly in wildlife habitats.

More hunting does not mean less wildlife, but more births. In the course of a leisure activity, Swiss hunters kill around 20,000 foxes every year — a ban on fox hunting, as already exists in the canton of Geneva, is long overdue in Switzerland.

To justify the relentless persecution of one of our most fascinating predators, it is simply claimed that fox or badger hunting during the small game season is necessary because their populations would otherwise get out of hand — a view that has long been outdated!

Time and again, claims emerge from the hobby hunter milieu that, upon closer analysis, trace their origins to hunting literature and similarly unscientific sources. This is due primarily to the frequently inadequate training in hunter certification courses, which are largely conducted by individuals who are at times fanatics with a sect-like ideology and who require no formal proof of qualification. After completing their training, hobby hunters move exclusively within the echo chamber of the hunting press, which continuously repeats its skewed and often erroneous portrayals.

Within hunting clubs, members then mutually reinforce their own worldview. In this way, a closed-off and militant group (8) has emerged that is largely inaccessible to scientific information. What makes this particularly damaging is that the local press and politicians still believe that expertise resides beneath the hunter's hat, and they happily consult the local hobby hunter on all matters relating to nature. In this way, hobby hunters end up contaminating the public discourse as well.

All the more reason to commend the Canton of Geneva, with its professional wildlife management free of hobby hunters but staffed with dedicated game wardens. Along Lake Geneva there are vineyards and other cultivated areas, just as in the rest of Switzerland. Evidently, however, they have adopted humane and ethical approaches to dealing with wildlife, along with intelligent measures to protect crops. In Geneva, foxes, martens, or badgers are not culled simply because hunting season has arrived — as is also reflected in the federal hunting statistics (2). Instead, practical deterrent measures (12), meaningful public education and assistance, and ongoing training with the game wardens take place. Safety, animal welfare, and ethics are the guiding principles.

Under the Animal Welfare Act (Art. 26 TSchA), a “reasonable justification” must exist for the killing of an animal — yet hunting foxes and badgers is in most cases nothing more than the gratification of a bloody hobby. There is no legally mandated culling plan for these wild animals. They serve hobby hunters as living targets, since there is neither a wildlife-biological nor a public health reason for the mass hunting of healthy predators.

Accordingly, every fox or badger hunt constitutes a clear violation of the Animal Welfare Act in Appenzell Ausserrhoden, because there is no reasonable justification for it. Fox and badger hunting is therefore primarily organized animal cruelty.

Wild animals also have feelings and emotions. They can suffer, grieve, and experience joy. Like us humans, they live in family groups and social structures, which hobby hunters mostly terrorize and desecrate for fun.

For a full 5½ months, foxes in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden are pursued – for badgers it is 6 months, according to federal hunting statistics. Given that level of stress, it is no wonder these animals become ill. Across all of Europe, the epicenter of fox tapeworm reports lies in Switzerland — precisely in the region of Switzerland where hunting-affine hobby hunters, such as Urs Philipp, have entrenched themselves within cantonal authorities. These senseless disturbances and noise emissions caused by hobby hunters during nighttime hunting in wildlife habitats also consistently disrupt entire wildlife populations and local residents.

Master Grimbart — as the badger is known in fable — is not often seen: the largest member of the mustelid family is shy and active only at night. Badgers spend the day primarily in their setts, which are usually located at the edge of residential areas and are often used by successive generations. Badgers, too, are harmless to humans and pose no threat to agriculture, forestry, or wild or domestic animals. Badgers do not attack cats and are mainly active at night. If they must defend themselves against dogs, it is usually the dog that comes off worse. Badgers spend the winter, or periods of low temperatures, predominantly sleeping — they enter a winter rest.

Science versus hunters' tall tales

For more than 30 years, there have been at least 18 wildlife biology studies that prove: fox hunting does not regulate populations and is also useless for controlling disease outbreaks. On the contrary!

Scientific studies have shown that even when three-quarters of a population is culled, the same number of foxes will be present again the following year. The more intensively they are hunted, the more offspring are produced — any form of “regulation” of these populations is neither necessary nor even achievable through hunting methods.

Fox populations are regulated through a complex social system. Foxes live in family groups in which only the highest-ranking vixen produces offspring (much like the lead sow among wild boar). The biologist Erik Zimen described this phenomenon as birth control rather than mass misery. However, when humans intervene in fox populations with traps and guns, these family communities are destroyed. As a result, nearly all vixens become receptive to mating, and the number of cubs per litter increases sharply.

«Even without hunting, there would not suddenly be too many foxes, hares, or birds. Experience shows that nature can be left to its own devices. From a purely pragmatic perspective, small game hunting is not necessary.»
Heinrich Haller, former National Park Director of Graubünden and wildlife biologist

Many case studies, such as national parks, Luxembourg or, for example, the Canton of Geneva have demonstrated that there are no sound arguments for these massacres. Habitat that becomes available is immediately reoccupied by these animals. It is well documented scientifically that fox populations develop largely independently of hunting interventions, because hunting, on the contrary, causes reproductive rates to surge.

These hunts also repeatedly lead to fatal cases of mistaken identity, with hobby hunters slaughtering protected species such as golden jackals or wolves.

Can the enlightened taxpayers of Appenzell Ausserrhoden still reconcile it with their conscience to support officials in the canton who show not the slightest regard for ethics, science, or animal welfare, and who deceive the public and put them at risk?

An end to animal cruelty and the waste of taxpayers’ money in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden.

Fox hunting is ecologically, economically, and epidemiologically pointless — indeed counterproductive! — and must therefore be banned in the interests of people, nature, and wildlife, as well as from the perspective of ethics, morality, and animal welfare. Blind actionism and violence help no one.

Wildlife feeding in their shared habitat is not damage, but a natural process essential to the survival of these creatures. What is called for here is tolerance and fairness. We humans encroach upon and destroy wildlife habitat at every level, to a far greater degree. Wildlife has just as much a right to exist as humans do. These disrespectful killing actions are entirely disproportionate to any sound and compassionate sense of justice. Against hail and bird damage, for example, one can also protect oneself with nets or deterrents.

With this direct submission of the petition to an official authority inAppenzell Ausserrhoden we demand that the killing of these wonderful creatures be prohibited as quickly as possible and published in the Official Gazette.

You can send your personal protest emails directly to the members of the cantonal government and cantonal parliament.

Make your voice heard by phone to the decision-makers in Appenzell Ausserrhoden :

Cantonal Chancellery Herisau, +41 71 353 61 11
Heinz Nigg, Head of Office, Hunting Administrator +41 71 353 67 70
Beat Fritsche, Forest Engineer +41 71 353 67 73
Oliver Gerlach, Forest Engineer +41 71 353 67 72
Andres Scholl, Nature Advisory Office +41 71 353 67 94
Roland Guntli, Game Warden +41 79 698 19 16
Jens Weber, SP President + 41 79 960 35 65

In addition, we demand from Appenzell Ausserrhoden:

The recognition of scientific studies and expert opinions (not from the hobby hunting community) that call into question or refute the necessity of hunting.
No dissemination of sectarian or debunked hunting myths, such as the alleged necessity of regulating fox populations, as well as fear-mongering about rabies, fox tapeworm and mange, or claims that foxes are responsible for the decline of small game, etc.
The killing of animals as a leisure activity has no place in the 21st century and should also be subject to criminal prosecution.

Justification:

In the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden during the 2018 hunting season, 465 foxes and 114 badgers — most of them healthy — were killed by militant hobby hunters on a non-scientific basis and without wildlife biology expertise.

The alleged threat to meadow birds — ground-nesting birds — can be dismissed as hunters' tall tales, given that research studies rate the influence on bird populations as insignificant (3). This is all the more understandable when one considers the main diet of foxes: mice and earthworms. Foxes are highly beneficial to agriculture. Yet few people are aware that foxes are also extremely beneficial to forestry and protect humans from disease by eagerly devouring mice (which are considered the primary carriers of, for example, Lyme disease).

The spurious arguments about allegedly combating rabies, fox tapeworm, or mange through relentless hunting have been scientifically refuted. Mange is far less common than assumed, and foxes in good physical condition can recover from it on their own. These fox populations then become resistant to reinfection. Furthermore, mange in foxes poses no danger to humans or domestic animals.

Fox Tapeworm

Fewer foxes, fewer fox tapeworms, and therefore a lower risk of infection for humans. At first glance a plausible conclusion — but on closer analysis, nothing more than hunters' lore, as several international studies (6) confirm.

Across Europe, the epicentre of fox tapeworm cases is in Switzerland — precisely in those areas of Switzerland where hunting-affiliated hobby hunters have entrenched themselves within cantonal authorities. These senseless disturbances and noise emissions caused by hobby hunters in wildlife habitats always affect entire wildlife populations and local residents alike..

There are far more zoonoses in pets and livestock. As a rule, only hobby hunters contract a zoonosis such as fox tapeworm. Around 20 – 30 people in Switzerland are infected each year with this liver disease (Echinococcus multilocularis). This is no more than in the past, as fewer foxes were found in cities back then. The immune system of most people is strong enough to fight off an infection. As a rule, the larvae of the fox tapeworm develop in the liver of mice and some rats. If a fox eats an infected mouse, a tapeworm develops again in its intestine. Cats and dogs that eat mice can also spread the parasite in this way, but do not themselves become ill. Somewhat reassuring is the fact that the incidence of the disease in Switzerland is very low, that direct transmission from fox to dogs is not possible, and that neutered animals do not contract fox tapeworm.

Urban foxes generally have an infestation rate below 20%, as their diet consists mainly of food scraps. Rural foxes, on the other hand, have a higher infestation rate because they feed extensively on field mice.

The risk of infection for ordinary forest visitors is minimal. Contrary to widespread rumours, no fox tapeworm patient is known to have become infected through wild forest berries. Berries growing high on bushes can be ruled out as a route of infection. It is hard to imagine how fox droppings could reach berries hanging high up on a bush.

“We have observed that fox mothers give birth to more young in areas where the animals are hunted. While culling can provide localised relief, the vacant territories are quickly reoccupied. Nature regulates this on its own.”
Wildlife warden Fabian Kern

Culling foxes can even have the effect that the habitat freed up is repopulated by foxes with a far higher proportion of fox tapeworm carriers.

Fox mange

Not every scruffy-looking fox has mange, and dogs are not at particularly high risk of infection either. The parasitic mange mite can certainly infect dogs or humans — but in both cases the infestation is very treatable. The apparently increased local occurrence of these mites is not the result of an excessively high fox population density. Therefore, increased hunting would not prevent the spread of mange. On the contrary, scientific evidence shows that hunting is counterproductive when it comes to controlling wildlife diseases, particularly in foxes. More broadly, it has also been shown that in intensively hunted areas, the fox population does not decline but actually increases due to higher reproduction rates and immigration of animals.

The main reasons for the spread of fox mange are considered to be intensive hunting. Hunting leads to an artificially rejuvenated and growing population with a weakened immune system, resulting in an increase in migrating juvenile foxes in autumn who spread the pathogens they carry.

“Unfortunately, we cannot provide health data on the foxes shot, as this is not recorded in the cull monitoring. This applies both to regular hunting and to the special culls carried out between 15 June and 31 August. Among animals found dead, some do have mange, but we cannot break down the exact number from the 23% attributed to age, illness, or weakness. As a general assumption, we can estimate that over the past 20 years, between 5 and 10% of foxes were affected by mange. Distemper is very rare.”
Rolf Schneeberger, LANAT Office for Agriculture and Nature

In the past, mange and distemper have repeatedly flared up locally and then died out again on their own. Particularly in areas where mange has spread most severely, foxes appear to be developing increasing resistance to reinfection. However, since hunting negates the natural survival advantage of mange-resistant foxes (a hobby hunter cannot tell at a glance whether a fox is mange-resistant), killing foxes is likely to be counterproductive in this respect as well. Incidentally, with regard to distemper, it has been found that wild animals have already developed antibodies, making the risk marginal.

Foxes protect us

A new study (7) suggests that the extinction of mouse-hunting predators, particularly the fox, is a cause of the increasing number of tick-borne diseases in humans.

Foxes also have a positive influence in protecting humans and animals from hantavirus, botulism, or, for example, leptospirosis (11).

“If so many foxes were not killed, farmers would not have to apply as much poison in the fields against mouse plagues — which in turn puts a strain on the entire ecosystem.”
IG Wild beim Wild

Foresters must combat mice — which damage seedlings and trees — using chemicals, mechanical means, and traps, while hobby hunters pursue foxes that would otherwise keep mouse populations in check. The result is millions of francs in damages and additional costs for forestry due to hunting. Farmers and orchardists are forced to hire mouse catchers because foxes and other predators are absent.

Barbaric folklore or normal hunting practice?

Fox hunting involves practices (9) that the Animal Welfare Act actually prohibits. Earth hunting and the training of earth dogs on live foxes are particularly cruel.

At least among the Swiss population, earth hunting enjoys very little acceptance — as shown by a representative survey conducted in September 2017 among 1,015 people by the market research company Demoscope on behalf of the Swiss Animal Protection (STS). Sixty-four percent support a ban, while only 21 percent want to retain earth hunting. Opposition is somewhat stronger among women and 15- to 34-year-olds. No Röstigraben exists.

The fox is a very illustrative (and sad) example of how hobby hunters, through their ignorance and compulsive need to control nature, create problems themselves and worsen natural regulatory mechanisms. If one approaches foxes without prejudice, one quickly recognizes that they are fascinating animals with impressive abilities. They are very caring parents and possess extraordinary capabilities, such as incorporating the Earth's magnetic field when hunting for food. Furthermore, as mousers they are very important to both agriculture and forestry, and play a significant role in curbing “rodent-transmitted pathogens” such as hantaviruses and Borrelia. For these reasons, we should see the fox for what it is — namely, an important part of the ecosystem and an asset to native fauna.

In fact, small game hunting as a whole ought to be banned. Those who kill senselessly neither protect nor benefit civilized society. Hobby hunters therefore do not contribute to healthy or natural wildlife populations either.

When it comes to hobby hunters in particular, it is absolutely essential to look very closely. Nowhere else is there so much manipulation through falsehoods, hunters’ tall tales, and fake news. Violence and lies are two sides of the same coin!

Sources:

Further Articles

Fred Kurt: The Roe Deer in the Cultural Landscape. Ecology, Social Behaviour, Hunting and Management. Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, p. 83.
Federal Hunting Statistics Link
Notes and References Link
Scientific Literature: Studies on the Red Fox
Hunters spread diseases: Study
Hunting promotes diseases: Study
Hobby hunters and criminal activity: The List
Ban on pointless fox hunting is long overdue: Article
Luxembourg extends fox hunting ban: Article
Small game hunting and wildlife diseases: Article
Deterring wildlife: Article

Online Petitions

Further Information

Wild beim Wild Wildlife Advocacy Group

The IG Wild beim Wild is a non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to the sustainable and non-violent improvement of the human-animal relationship, with a particular specialization in the legal aspects of wildlife protection. One of our main concerns is to introduce a contemporary and serious wildlife management system in the cultivated landscape, modeled on the Canton of Geneva — without hobby hunters, but with wildlife wardens of integrity who truly earn that title and act according to a code of ethics. The monopoly on the use of force belongs in the hands of the state. The IG supports scientific methods of immunocontraception for wildlife.