Podcast Episode: Hunting, Animal Welfare And Protest

Pip: Welcome to Wild beim Wild — where an environmental arena becomes the backdrop for rifles and trophies, and the municipal council would rather call the public prosecutor than read its own emails.

Mara: Over the past few weeks, the Wild beim Wild editorial team has carried out in-depth research into two areas: the Spreitenbach case, with its administrative, legal and animal welfare law ramifications — and the wider picture of wolf policy and the normalisation of hunting in Switzerland.

Pip: Let's start with Spreitenbach — quite a lot has happened there.

Spreitenbach and the hunting fair

Mara: At its core, this is about a question that reaches far beyond a single trade fair: who bears responsibility when an arena marketed as a sustainability venue plays host to hunting fairs — and who is held accountable when protest against it arises?

Pip: The veterinary service of the canton of Aargau has responded to a request for information. The result is sobering in its clarity.

Mara: Exactly. Deputy cantonal veterinarian Melanie Kocher confirms in her reply: "The Jagdmesse Schweiz on 7 and 8 March 2026 was not reported to the veterinary service in advance. There was no knowledge of any presentation of live animals. No inspections were carried out on site."

Pip: No form, no conditions, no paper trail. An event featuring weapons, trophies and hunting tourism went entirely unchecked by animal welfare law enforcement — while the Umwelt Arena markets itself as a venue for sustainability and environmental education.

Mara: And the contrast with the Terra Expo makes this even clearer. For the Terra Expo 2026, dates were reviewed and an exhibition permit issued, complete with random and unannounced inspections. At the hunting fair: nothing comparable. At the same time, Swiss Animal Protection (STS) estimates that there are around 60,000 cases of cruel and therefore illegal reptile keeping in Switzerland — with the Umwelt Arena as a central hub.

Pip: The authority takes action against cat shows, but when it comes to a documented mass problem involving reptiles, comparable intervention is absent. This raises questions that the veterinary service's letter leaves unanswered.

Mara: In parallel, the political conflict is playing out at municipal level. The article on the Swiss Hunting Fair at the Umwelt Arena Spreitenbach documents how Arena managing director Ivan Skender defended the decision: the Umwelt Arena does not see itself “as a moral authority, but as a place for discourse and opinion-forming.” The article on the legitimisation of animal cruelty counters this: whoever gives a hunting fair space, promotion and the label of sustainability is making a decision — and that decision is anything but neutral.

Pip: The municipality has not responded to three letters to this day. But it reacted to 850 protest emails with a criminal complaint for misuse of a telecommunications facility.

Mara: The article Spreitenbach criminalises the right to petition examines this from a legal perspective. The Federal Office of Communications is unequivocal: mass distribution of political messages fundamentally never counts as spam. SECO confirms: spam regulations only apply where there is a commercial purpose. An animal welfare petition simply does not fall under this.

Mara: What's more: the platform Campax sent structurally identical emails to Council of States members in December 2025 — no criminal complaint. The Federal Palace was flooded with 500,000 emails — no criminal complaint. Spreitenbach filed a complaint over 850 demonstrably authentic emails from real people.

Pip: Municipal president Markus Mötteli, deputy municipal president Doris Schmid-Hofer, and the two non-partisan councillors Adrian Mayr and Mike Heggli all left three letters unanswered — the very same four people who filed the criminal complaint.

Mara: The article Spreitenbach reports animal welfare platform calls it by name: experts speak of SLAPP — Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. Lawsuits that do not aim at winning in court, but at silencing criticism. The objection has been filed, and the case is going to court.

Pip: And then there is the question of physical violence. On 8 March, Hunt Watch activist Olivier Bieli was attacked at the throat outside the Umwelt Arena. Explicit death threats against him had already been circulating in hunting forums beforehand.

Mara: The article on violence by recreational hunters against animal welfare advocates documents a pattern: an activist thrown to the ground in Füllinsdorf, slashed tyres used as a means of intimidation, an animal welfare advocate choked unconscious in Trimmis. The disparity speaks for itself: a physical attack on a peacefully demonstrating person did not trigger a criminal complaint from the municipality — 850 e-mails did.

Pip: The petition that triggered all of this remains online. What has changed is the way people look at the question of whom institutions are actually protecting.

Mara: This very question leads us directly to the next topic — wolf policy and how hunting is staged as a socially normal format.

Wolf policy and criticism of hunting

Mara: Swiss wolf policy is developing in a clear direction: SRF reported that "following the Council of States, the National Council also wants to lower the hurdles for killing wolves" — even though reported livestock kills are declining.

Pip: Fewer losses, more kills. The logic does not become clear at first glance.

Mara: The article on wolf policy and hunting fairs also shows how cantons such as Grisons and Uri respond with special hunts when kill quotas are not met. At the same time, the article on recreational hunting as an event maps how hunting creates social acceptance through fur markets, trophy shows and family programmes — normalisation through staging, from the hunting fair to the children's concert.

Pip: What became concretely visible in Spreitenbach is therefore not an isolated case — but part of a mechanism that operates nationwide.

Mara: What Spreitenbach shows is a structural pattern: protest is treated as a disturbance, while animal cruelty is treated as an event format.

Pip: And as long as a municipality would rather call the public prosecutor than set up an e-mail filter, the decisive question remains open — who is actually being protected here.