Poaching in the Forest: When Violence Becomes the Norm

In German forests, wild animals do not only die legally in the crosshairs of hobby hunters.

A recent report by the ZDF environment desk shows how a criminal parallel world has established itself alongside official recreational hunting: poaching — organised, violent, and lucrative. Yet anyone who looks more closely will recognise that the boundary between legal hunting and illegal poaching does not lie where the hunting lobby would prefer. It begins far earlier — namely with the question of how our society thinks about wild animals in the first place.

For a long time, poaching in Germany was narrated as an almost romantic footnote of history. The poor man in the forest, secretly shooting a deer to feed his family. ZDF recalls a well-known figure from Wiesbaden, the poacher Heinrich Anton Leichtweiss, whose cave is today a tourist attraction. This narrative is part of our folklore. It has little to do with the reality of modern poaching.

Today it is about money, weapons, and power. Perhaps the most prominent case: in 2022, two police officers were shot dead during a night-time check in the Kusel district of Rhineland-Palatinate. The perpetrators were not “poor poachers” but heavily armed hobby hunters, one of whom had a proven record of offences across hundreds of hunting districts. He has since been sentenced to life imprisonment by a final court ruling.

This case illustrates how profoundly the forest has become a crime scene. Where hunting blinds stand, it is no longer only hunters with state-sanctioned authorisation who are present, but also perpetrators who regard wild animals as commodities and are willing to use violence against people.

Poaching is increasing, prosecutions are declining

According to figures cited by the German Hunting Association with reference to the Federal Criminal Police Office, registered cases of poaching have risen significantly since 2012. From fewer than 900 cases to a peak of more than 1’100 offences in 2024, representing an increase of just over one third. At the same time, the clearance rate is falling. Fewer than one third of cases are solved at all.

Experts also assume a considerable number of unreported cases. There is no uniform national statistics system for wildlife crime. Each authority records data according to its own standards, and no central reporting office exists. WWF wildlife crime expert Melina Sowah points precisely to this problem and calls for better structures and forensic capabilities in order to be able to identify perpetrators in the first place.

While associations and politicians apparently do not even have full knowledge of the figures, violence is escalating at the local level. According to the hunting association, firearms are used in approximately one in five recorded cases. However, crossbows, snare traps, and poisoned bait are also being used with increasing frequency.

By this point at the latest, it becomes clear: this is not a “minor transgression in the woods,” but rather classic organised crime with massive consequences for both animals and humans.

The territorial system: when wildlife is treated as property

Particularly explosive is another point raised in the ZDF report: the German territorial hunting system. It is legally established that the holder of a hunting territory has the exclusive right to appropriate game animals within their area — regardless of whether the animal is dead or alive.

This leads to situations that appear absurd to laypeople: anyone who simply loads a roadkill deer into the boot of their car may be committing a criminal offence. Legally, this already constitutes poaching, governed by § 292 of the Criminal Code.

From an animal welfare perspective, this paragraph reveals less about morality than it does about the logic of ownership. The central problem: the wild animal is not regarded as an independent individual, but as an object over which a human being holds power of disposal.

This logic unites illegal and legal hunting. Both systems are based on the premise that humans claim the right to freely determine life and death, provided they comply with certain rules — whether those of hunting law or criminal law. The question of whether the wild animal should be killed at all is not one the system asks.

Hobby hunters and poachers: two sides of the same coin

Hunting associations like to portray themselves as protectors of nature when it comes to the topic of poaching. The familiar refrain goes: “We know our territory, we keep watch, we are the first to notice anything.” In the ZDF report, the German Hunting Association emphasizes that the territorial system is a particular advantage, because there are responsible hobby hunters on the ground who know what is happening in their area.

This narrative has two flaws:

1. Violence inherent to the system is ignored.
   Hobby hunting itself is nothing other than the systematic killing of wildlife. From an animal welfare perspective, it is morally irrelevant whether the bullet comes from a “legal” or “illegal” weapon. For the animal that is struck, the suffering is identical.
2. It creates a climate in which wildlife is regarded as a fundamentally manageable resource.
   Those who routinely “remove,” “regulate,” and “control populations” of wildlife establish a mindset in which the killing of animals is normal. In this climate, the step from “legal” to “illegal” feels less like a moral transgression and more like a rule violation within one’s own club.

The line between hobby hunter and poacher does not run along the barrel of a rifle. It runs through the ethical question of whether the forest is a habitat or a shooting range.

Endangered species: When one shot too many changes everything

The WWF reminds us that poaching does not only affect roe deer or wild boar. Strictly protected species are repeatedly victims of illegal killings: lynxes, wolves, white-tailed eagles, red kites, otters, beavers. In small populations, even the loss of individual animals can be decisive — for instance in the context of reintroduction projects or genetic diversity.

A shot wolf or a poisoned white-tailed eagle is not simply an isolated case. It can mean that a population tips into decline, that a pack fails to establish itself stably, or that young animals are left behind without their mother.

Against this backdrop, it seems grotesque how matter-of-factly many federal states simultaneously discuss culling plans, “upper limits,” or “regulatory hunting” for species that are already threatened or contentious. State-sanctioned hunting and criminal poaching frequently pull in the same direction: the direction of violence against animals that are already suffering under habitat loss, traffic, the climate crisis, and agriculture.

Hotlines, training, forensics — but no animal ethics

A ZDF report presents an EU-funded project involving, among others, the WWF. Police, authorities, researchers, and NGOs are working together to better document wildlife crime, secure evidence in a forensically sound manner, and train authorities. This also includes a nationwide hotline through which suspected cases can be reported.

All of this is important. But it remains a technical approach that scratches the surface. Forensics, databases, and training sessions do not answer the central question: Why does a society accept a system in which wildlife appears almost exclusively as a problem, a resource, or a trophy?

As long as wildlife in official discourse is reduced to “bag”, to “head of game”, to “prey”, the moral stakes remain low. Anyone who constantly hears that populations “must be reduced” will not experience the step toward illegal killing as a fundamental ethical breach, but rather as a rule violation within an already violence-based system.

“Wildlife has no lobby” — and that is a deliberate political choice

The ZDF article quotes, in essence, the statement that wildlife has no lobby. In fact, this is not a law of nature. It is the result of political decisions.

The hunting lobby is well connected, sits on committees, maintains associations, and organizes shooting events with politicians. When it comes to stricter controls, firearms legislation, closed seasons, or greater rights for animal protection organizations, it becomes very vocal.

Animals have no voice. But they could have strong representation, if politics and society so wished. Instead, those who fundamentally question recreational hunting are still readily dismissed as “emotional” or “out of touch with reality.”

What genuine protection against poaching would mean

Anyone who truly wants to combat poaching must not only intervene at the end of the chain of violence. It is not enough to convict a few more poachers and promote a hotline, while at the same time hundreds of thousands of hobby hunters roam the forest with rifles and silencers.

Genuine protection against poaching would mean:

• Significantly restricting weapons and hunting privileges.
  Fewer weapons in the forest mean fewer potential perpetrators and less space for violence.
• No longer treating wildlife legally as ownerless objects.
  Instead of appropriation rights for lease holders, what is needed are rights for the animals themselves — at minimum in the form of strong, legally enforceable animal protection law.
• To gradually phase out hunting as a leisure activity.
  Wildlife must not remain a backdrop for hobbies and trophies. Necessary interventions must be strictly justified, state-controlled, and reduced to a minimum.
• To address ecological root causes rather than symptoms.
  Anyone who wants to curb poaching must also dry up the trade in game meat, trophies, and illegal products — for example through stricter controls, harsh penalties, and international cooperation.

The problem is not only the illegal shot

The ZDF report vividly illustrates how brutal poaching in Germany has become and what gaps still exist in policing and nature conservation. It makes clear that poaching is not a “minor offence” but a serious threat to individual animals, entire populations, and ultimately to people as well.

What the report only touches on peripherally: legal hobby hunting creates the cultural and legal climate in which this violence can thrive. As long as wildlife in the territorial system is regarded as quasi-available property, as long as killing them is understood as normal “use” of the forest, poaching remains just one rule-break away.

Anyone who truly wants to stand on the side of wildlife must have the courage to question the entire hunting system — not just its illegal excesses.