Podcast Episode: Hunting, Nature Conservation and Risk

Three claims, three fact-checks: this episode scrutinises the hunting associations' nature conservation PR, the fox-hunting figures for the canton of Lucerne, and the promise that recreational hunting protects the population. The result is the same each time: the arguments do not hold up against their sources.

Nature conservation PR with no proof of impact

The Italian hunting portal Caccia Passione cites the Biodiversity Manifesto of FACE, the European umbrella association of hunting associations, and points to more than 550 conservation projects as evidence. However, these projects are reported and selected by the association itself, with no independent review of their ecological impact. In Switzerland there is an additional structural problem: 16 of the 26 cantons operate under licence hunting, without a leased hunting ground and without any duty of care. The image of the recreational hunter as steward of the landscape thus presupposes a relationship that does not legally exist at all. Geneva has done without recreational hunting since 1974 and is now among the most species-rich cantons.

Fox hunting in Lucerne: 98 percent healthy animals

Lucerne is the only canton that systematically records disease in killed foxes. In the 2018/19 hunting year, 2,217 foxes were shot, only 39 of which were sick — that is, 1.76 percent. This removes the main argument of disease control. The cantonal commission's report does not cite a single piece of wildlife-biology research, even though studies from several countries have shown for decades that hunting pressure does not reduce fox density. Wildlife biologist Sandra Gloor and the former president of the Grisons association, Robert Brunold, reach the same conclusion, and even the Zurich recreational hunter Franz Balmer admitted in the «Tages-Anzeiger» that fox hunting does more harm than good to the reputation of hunting. The report warns of "considerable additional costs" if the practice were abandoned, without citing a figure. The Geneva model costs around one million francs per year.

The protection promise is turned on its head

A study by Dutch biologist Tim Hofmeester shows that where many predators live, significantly fewer ticks carry the Lyme disease pathogen. Fewer foxes mean more mice, more ticks and more Lyme disease, which affects an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 people in Switzerland every year. Hunting also proves counterproductive when it comes to the fox tapeworm: in a four-year study around Nancy, the population did not shrink despite 776 foxes being killed — the infection rate even rose from 40 to 55 per cent, as young foxes moved into the territories left vacant by the culls. On top of this there is the issue of lead: the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment ranks game meat among the food items most heavily contaminated with lead. Effective alternatives have long existed. Rabies was defeated using vaccine bait, and deworming bait lowered the tapeworm infection rate from 13.3 to 2.2 per cent.

Further background in the categories Hunting and Environment & Nature Conservation.