Poland: More and more hunting-free properties for wildlife

In Poland, the number of hunting-free properties is growing: numerous landowners are taking legal action against the forced hunting on their land.

To date, 133 administrative court rulings have resulted in private properties being removed from hunting districts.

In recent years, Poland has seen significant legal changes regarding the practice of hunting on private land.

In 1952, the communist authorities of the time introduced hunting legislation that remains in force in Poland to this day, under which wildlife is legally considered state property and the management of hunting is conducted by the state. The authorities decide on the species and numbers of animals to be managed and later culled. The property rights of private landowners were positioned as secondary to the needs of forestry and hunting management.

The new Hunting Act of 2005 changed nothing in these respects. The entire country is divided into hunting districts encompassing both public areas (e.g. state forests) and numerous private areas (forests, meadows, arable land). Hunting rights belong exclusively to members of a quasi-governmental organisation, the Polish Hunting Association, whose regional clubs manage the various hunting districts, for which they pay a modest annual fee to the district authorities or to the administrative bodies of the state forests.

Private landowners derive no profit from this arrangement and have no means of preventing hunting on their own land. Hobby hunters may enter landowners' fields at any time without the owners' permission, drive vehicles across them, erect raised hides, set up bait sites with carrots or maize to attract wildlife, and shoot animals.

In exchange for managing "hunting operations," the state transferred to the Polish Hunting Association the obligation to compensate for wildlife damage. In practice, however, farmers faced considerable difficulties obtaining satisfactory compensation, as the assessment of damage and the determination of compensation amounts were tasks assigned to hobby hunters — who naturally wish to pay out as little wildlife damage compensation as possible. Many hunting districts also take no measures to actually protect fields from wildlife damage, since for many of their members shooting animals is a hobby or a weekend adventure involving hunting trophies. Some hunting districts even sell the opportunity for commercial hunting to foreign hobby hunters. These hunting districts aim to grow the numbers of deer, roe deer, or wild boar as much as possible — particularly through intensive winter feeding — in order to have more opportunities to shoot during the hunting season.

Regulations comparable to German hunting law

In Germany, too, all land outside enclosed built-up areas (which are considered pacified zones) is subject to hunting law. Every landowner who owns land in rural areas automatically becomes a member of a hunting cooperative — often without even being aware of it. The hunting cooperative leases hunting rights to hobby hunters, who then carry out the hunting. Landowners must therefore tolerate hobby hunters entering their property, erecting raised hides, setting up feeding stations, conducting driven hunts, and shooting animals — including the landowner's own cat, should it stray too far from the house and thus be regarded as "poaching."

On 26 June 2012, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that compulsory membership in a hunting cooperative violates human rights when a landowner objects to hunting on ethical grounds. It is incompatible with the protection of property guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights for landowners to be forced members of a hunting cooperative and thus required to tolerate hunting on their land against their will.

As a result of the ruling by Europe's highest court, the Federal Republic of Germany was required to amend its hunting legislation accordingly. On 6 December 2013, the “Act Amending Hunting Law Provisions” came into force. Landowners may apply to the Lower Hunting Authority to have their land declared a hunting-free zone. In practice, however, authorities place numerous obstacles in the way of landowners to discourage them from seeking such a designation: from threats of high costs to warnings that they may be liable for wildlife damage on neighbouring properties. Many landowners must wait years for their land to be declared a hunting-free zone and often only succeed with the help of a lawyer.

First lawsuits in Poland following the ECHR ruling

The conflict between owners of private land (mostly farmers) and recreational hunters has continued to intensify in recent years. The reason: in 2012, the European Court of Human Rights issued a ruling in the case of Herrmann v. Germany, in which it was established that a landowner may refuse hunting on their property if they cannot reconcile the killing of animals in this manner with their conscience. Following this, a farming couple from Lebus in Poland filed a lawsuit before the administrative court against the inclusion of their fields, covering an area of 53 hectares, in hunting district No. 47. The couple wished to create ponds on their land. These plans were thwarted when recreational hunters carried out hunts in the area, felled trees, parked off-road vehicles,hunting dogs let them run loose, and fired shots at animals. The second-instance administrative court referred a legal question to the Constitutional Court regarding the conformity of hunting law with the Polish Constitution.

In July 2014, the Polish Constitutional Court ruled that Article 27 of the Polish Hunting Act is unconstitutional and would be repealed as of January 2016. The Constitutional Court also referred to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights and found that the inclusion of a property in a hunting district without adequately protecting the rights of the landowner constitutes a disproportionate interference with their property rights.

In January 2016, the eco-association «Zródla», owner of a 5-hectare forest, applied to the Lodz Voivodeship to have this area excluded from hunting district No. 315, as the association, which also operates as an animal welfare organisation, cannot tolerate the killing of animals on its property. After the application was rejected by the Voivodeship, the association filed a complaint with the administrative court.

In December 2016, a judgment was handed down declaring the establishment of a hunting district on the association's land to be invalid. The court emphasized that all resolutions passed by the regional parliaments of the Voivodeships on the basis of Article 27 were based on unconstitutional and invalid provisions. Consequently, any landowner may apply for these resolutions to be declared invalid. In 2016, three similar judgments were simultaneously handed down in other Voivodeships.

Nature conservation association supports landowners

The nature conservation association «Zródla» publicised the possibility for any landowner to submit such an application, launched the website www.zakazpolowania.pl (“Hunting ban”) and offered legal assistance to those affected.

From the beginning of 2017, over 100 additional landowners filed complaints in similar cases with the courts. All judgments were the same. Most of the plaintiffs were farmers who could not accept hobby hunters on their land and disagreed with the fact that compensation for wildlife damage is paid by hunting clubs rather than from public funds.

The courts almost automatically excluded the plaintiffs' properties from the hunting districts and in eight cases even dissolved entire hunting districts outright. Nevertheless, many affected landowners in Poland are deterred from pursuing legal action due to the costs and the potential length of the proceedings.

Landowners can request exclusion from the hunting district

In 2018, the Polish Sejm, one of the two chambers of the Polish National Assembly, amended the hunting law and reintroduced Article 27, among other things, taking into account the guidance of the Constitutional Court. The regional parliaments of the voivodeships now have until March 2020 to redefine the boundaries of hunting districts, but this time in consultation with farmers' associations. In addition, any landowner may request that their property not be incorporated into the new hunting district, on the grounds of specific activities carried out on that land.

Whether such objections from landowners will be taken into account, or whether their rights will be subject only to superficial protection, remains to be seen in 2020. Should it emerge that the proposals of the owners are being disregarded, this would mean that the Constitutional Court's ruling of 2014 is not being respected, which would result in further legal action.

Landowners can apply for a hunting ban

The new regulations also provide the additional option of having hunting prohibited on private land by submitting a simple declaration to the local authorities. While the land in question remains part of a hunting district and hobby hunters may enter it without the owner's permission (e.g. to track injured animals), they are not permitted to shoot there.

This regulation is based on the 2012 ruling of the European Court of Human Rights. Originally, the provision was intended to apply exclusively to the ethical convictions of the owner, should these conflict with the killing of animals, with the owner required to substantiate their beliefs in court. Ultimately, these provisions were struck from the legislation by parliament virtually at the last moment, as they would likely have been unconstitutional.

The application for a hunting ban can therefore be submitted without any justification whatsoever. However, the scope of this provision is limited to natural persons only. This means that legal entities such as animal welfare and nature conservation organizations or foundations cannot, just as in Germany, apply for a hunting ban on their land. As a result, animal welfare or nature conservation associations such as «Zródla» cannot make use of this provision, similar to, for example, companies that own agricultural land or commercial forests.

These currently applicable regulations appear to be unconstitutional, as they deprive civic organizations of the ability to exercise their rights. However, any legal challenge could prove complicated, particularly against the backdrop of the Polish government having abolished the independence of the Constitutional Tribunal.

The nature conservation organizations united in the coalition «Niechzyja!» («Let Them Live!») are jointly planning a series of campaigns intended to encourage private landowners to submit such applications for a hunting ban.

Objections to planned driven hunts

Another amendment, in force since 2018, is the possibility for landowners to object to a driven hunt, such as a battue or driven shoot, which is a popular, brutal “leisure pursuit” in Poland in which a group of recreational hunters gathers in one location to hunt together, shooting at birds or wildlife attempting to flee from beaters — that is, from noisy people — out of the forest. These are often also commercial hunts organized for recreational hunters from Germany, France, or Italy. From 2019 onwards, recreational hunters are required to notify the municipal office at least 14 days before such hunts, which is then obliged to publish the date of the hunt on its official website. Landowners may lodge an objection to the planned hunt, citing safety grounds — for example, because they plan to carry out field work or ornithological observations for a group of people at the same time.

Inspections carried out by «Zródla» have revealed that most hunting associations unfortunately fail to meet their obligations: information about planned group hunts is not forwarded to the municipal authorities in a timely or complete manner (e.g. without specifying the times or without identifying the hunting ground in the notification). It is also not uncommon for the correctly notified authority to be unfamiliar with the new regulations and to fail to publish any notice on its website.

In the course of work on the legislative amendment, a proposal for an electronic central hunting register — in which anyone could conveniently view the locations and dates of planned hunts — unfortunately failed to gain support among members of parliament. Perhaps it will be possible to revisit this idea in the future.

The organisers of a group hunt are also required to mark the hunting ground with appropriate warning signs; however, the Ministry of the Environment has not issued any regulation providing a template for such warning signs. In all likelihood, hobby hunters will disregard this obligation as well.

Nature conservation organisations report violations

Nature conservation organisations will monitor this situation closely and report cases to the police where hobby hunters’ failure to comply with information or marking obligations could put uninvolved persons — including tourists or mushroom pickers — at risk.

Public acceptance of hobby hunting in Poland has fallen dramatically

Poland has 38.5 million inhabitants, of whom 120’000 are hobby hunters. Public acceptance of hunting has by now fallen very low: according to a 2016 study, only 10 percent of Poles accept this kind of hobby. Measures to curb hunters’ privileges are being received positively both by society and the media, and even by several representatives of the governing authorities. Furthermore, the animal-friendly legislative changes are likely also the result of a personal intervention by the chairman of the ruling party, Jarosław Kaczyński, who has publicly expressed criticism of hobby hunters on several occasions.