Petition: Blood alcohol limit for recreational hunters
Weapons and alcohol don't mix.
Anyone carrying a rifle in the forest is allowed to drink without being checked.
The Swiss Hunting Act and the cantonal implementing provisions contain no binding blood alcohol limit for armed recreational hunters. Alcohol at hobby hunts, at the morning drink, on the high seat or at the evening after the hunt, is culturally entrenched and barely regulated by law.
Since the year 2000, dozens of people have been killed in hunting accidents in Switzerland, with around 300 hunting accidents registered annually. Whether and how often alcohol was a factor is statistically invisible, because no alcohol tests are required after hunting accidents.
Anyone driving a car is checked. Anyone driving a motorboat is checked. Anyone going into a forest with public hiking trails carrying a semi-automatic hunting rifle is not. This regulatory gap cannot be justified by tradition.
Our demands
- Binding zero tolerance of 0.0 per mille for armed recreational hunters in the hunting ground.
- Mandatory alcohol test after every hunting accident involving personal injury or property damage.
- Reporting obligation for hunting accidents where alcohol consumption may be a factor, including statistical recording at federal level.
- Independent investigation of hunting accidents by cantonal bodies outside the hunting administration, not by game wardens or recreational hunting associations themselves.
- Ban on carrying weapons under the influence of alcohol in the hunting ground, enforceable through random checks by the wildlife wardens.
Why this petition?
Recreational hunting is a leisure activity in Switzerland pursued by around 30,000 recreational hunters. These people carry firearms through publicly accessible forests, alpine pastures and field margins. That they are not subject to any alcohol checks while doing so is a historically grown exception, not a factual argument.
The influence of recreational hunting associations in consultation procedures and parliamentary committees has so far prevented every regulatory initiative in this area. A society that exempts armed people in public forests from alcohol checks exposes its citizens to an avoidable risk.
Who is the petition addressed to?
Swiss Federal Council, DETEC (Federal Office for the Environment, Species, Ecosystems, Landscapes Division), Conference of Cantonal Governments, Conference of Cantonal Hunting and Fisheries Administrators (JFK), and the 26 cantonal hunting administrations.
Sign now
With your signature you support the demand for a binding alcohol regulation for armed recreational hunting in Switzerland. Every voice counts.
Dear Sir or Madam,
with this petition we demand a binding blood alcohol limit for armed recreational hunters in Switzerland.
There is no federal regulation for armed recreational hunters. This is a regulatory gap that cannot be justified by tradition.
Our demands:
1. Binding blood alcohol limit of 0.0 per mille for armed recreational hunters in the hunting ground.
2. Mandatory alcohol test after every hunting accident involving personal injury or property damage.
3. Reporting obligation for hunting accidents involving possible alcohol influence.
4. Independent investigation of hunting accidents outside the hunting administration.
5. Ban on carrying weapons under the influence of alcohol in the hunting ground.
I support these demands as a signatory.
Yours sincerely
Add your voice now
Your signature counts.
I signed because...
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«It is a disgrace that there is still no regulation on this.»
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«Because it is irresponsible to be allowed to walk through nature drunk with a loaded weapon, and I don't even want to imagine the rest. Many people are shot every year by such wildlife mass murderers and the legislator does nothing.»
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«Hunting is cruel and dangerous. Driven hunts also lead across roads, even fast-moving ones. People and pets are also shot. Alcohol consumption during hunting increases the risk. E.T.»
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«Alcohol impairs inhibitions even in small amounts, meaning a hunter can no longer exercise his great responsibility under the influence! I don't want to be shot by an intoxicated hunter while exercising in the open countryside!»
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«Because I find hunting out of boredom on the hunters' part unacceptable.»
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«If it helps to make the system credible, why not! BUT when you know how it works, hmm»
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«Hunters with weapons and then alcohol on top, that's out of the question!»
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«Anyone who picks up a weapon should under no circumstances be under the influence of alcohol, so that they are fully in command of the practical and moral responsibility for their actions.»
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«Stop drinking and hand in your weapons!! Nature regulates everything by itself, that is a fact God willing!»
Read more (7)
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«Hunters actually like to present themselves as responsible citizens and fellow human beings. Unfortunately, this is by no means the case, because behind the image of the responsible citizen there is often a ruthless animal abuser and an equally ruthless fellow human.»
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«See:: https://www.abschaffung-der-jagd.de/menschenalsjaegeropfer/ ---- CRIMINAL OFFENCES and HUNTING ACCIDENTS involving HUNTING WEAPONS in Germany since 2002 !!!! This alone is reason enough not only to ban alcohol but to ban recreational hunting altogether and replace it with neutral, science-based WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT !!!»
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«It is frightening to live, from September onwards, in a canton where one can be injured or killed by a bullet at any moment because recreational hunters are drunk and/or ancient.»
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«Weapons and alcohol are always a no-go»
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«Because the consumption of alcohol leads to uncontrolled actions that would probably not occur while sober.»
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«in my view, hunting should fundamentally be abolished, because it is scientifically unjustifiable, de facto unnecessary and de jure untenable. But since injustice remains "right" until a majority frees itself from this injustice and its perpetrators through legal means, the minimal demand should be that hunting must not begin without alcohol checks. A hunt must be registered. The meeting point, i.e. place and time, must be announced. Before the hunt begins, the police can carry out alcohol checks on each participant, depending on the number of participants. The same applies after the hunting activities, since the hunters want to take part in road traffic again afterwards. Alcohol can also be carried in or stored in the car.»
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«I am signing because drunk hunters pose an avoidable risk.»