Bern: Criticism of "Fishing, Hunting, Shooting" trade fair
From Thursday, 13 – 16 February 2020, the "Fishing, Hunting, Shooting" trade fair takes place at the Expo grounds in Bern. IG Wild beim Wild criticizes the event and calls for boycotting the fair. Killing as "pastime" is an anti-culture.
Although there is no comprehensible reason for hunting animal species such as carrion crows, rooks, Eurasian jays, magpies, feral domestic cats, raccoons, raccoon dogs, foxes and badgers during the low hunting season, these wild animals and also domestic animals are killed annually primarily as "recreational activity" by recreational hunters.
Those who kill senselessly do not protect, and it serves no purpose for civilized society. Recreational hunters therefore also do not ensure healthy or natural wildlife populations, especially not with their abhorrent fox hunting.
Trophy hunting abroad
IG Wild beim Wild criticizes that the organizer Bernexpo AG provides a platform for people who indulge in a culture of violence within the framework of a misunderstood nature experience. The SBB even offer combination tickets for schools. Trophy hunters can, for example, book the shooting of wild animals in Namibia at such fairs. Kambaku GmbH & Co. is one such tour operator that claims European recreational hunters must regulate wildlife populations there because local predators have failed. The website features a perverse price list for tourists who want to kill wild animals in Africa. The shooting of animals can simply be booked as an add-on to the safari.
Namibia is very popular among hunting tourists in German-speaking regions. In the former German colony live around 20,000 German-Namibians whose native language is German. Some of them lure visitors to German-language all-inclusive hunting vacations on their farms. The supervised hunt costs around 200 euros per day, including accommodation and full board. Additional costs include rental rifles and trophy fees for shot animals.
"It is tasteless to promote the killing of animals as a kind of entertaining 'recreational sport' at the Fishing Hunting Shooting fair in Bern. Under the guise of connection with nature, hunting causes immeasurable suffering – every year many animals are wounded by missed shots or terrorized senselessly. Many of them die slowly and agonizingly. Sensitive fish are regarded as toys or sports equipment and are impaled or beaten to death."
Carl Sonnthal, IG Wild beim Wild.
Hobby hunters in Switzerland are demonstrably involved in thousands of legal violations year after year according to media reports, such as violations of hunting law, poaching, arms smuggling, environmental and traffic offenses, animal welfare violations and other crimes.
Hunting practices are employed that are actually prohibited by the Animal Welfare Act. In doing so, hobby hunters frequently inflict considerable pain on these sentient beings. Furthermore, incidents occur annually where stray shots or ricochets injure or even kill people, rifle bullets strike houses, or walkers suddenly come under fire. Anglers lure millions of fish into traps each year, pierce hooks through their mouths, let them suffocate or gut them while still partially alive. The IG Wild beim Wild demands a ban on hobby hunting and recreational fishing.