Italian psychologist: What drives people to recreational hunting

In an opinion piece for the Italian daily newspaper «Il Fatto Quotidiano», psychologist and psychotherapist Patrizia Mattioli raises a question that regularly gets lost in the debate about kill quotas, protected areas and hunting seasons: why does a modern state permit and organise the killing of non-human animals as a pastime in the first place?

Not a sport, but cowardice

Mattioli describes recreational hunting as a relic from a time when killing served the purpose of feeding people. Today, she argues, it is superfluous, costly and burdens the environment. She rejects any claim to athleticism: anyone who shoots wild animals with high-precision weapons or deceives them with live decoy birds is not demonstrating any special skill. Her conclusion is unequivocal: «Shooting at creatures fleeing for their survival is cowardice, not sport.»

Power as a hidden motive

If neither hunger nor necessity remain as justification, the psychotherapist argues, the real motive must lie elsewhere. She sees it in an inner need for power: in the brief moment of the shot, to dominate nature and to hold sway over the life and death of another living being. Whether recreational hunters are aware of this is irrelevant, she says.

Recreational hunting offers the ideal framework for this, because it reinterprets killing: not as violence against nature, but as a supposed connection to it. Experiencing nature, Mattioli counters, requires no suffering of another living being.

What research shows about recreational hunters

Mattioli refers to studies comparing recreational hunters and non-hunters psychologically. According to these, recreational hunters rated themselves as significantly more aggressive, preferred dominant strategies in conflicts, and showed less empathy towards non-human animals. This empathy declines further with growing hunting experience: the more often someone hunts, the more they become desensitised. According to Mattioli, the willingness to kill without necessity goes hand in hand with personality patterns that are considered risk factors in other areas of life.

Research into the psychology of recreational hunting remains limited so far and relies mainly on self-reports. Wild beim Wild summarises the available findings in the study overview «Hunting Fact-Checked», supplemented by the article «Hunting Fever» and cantonal analyses such as the Psychology of Recreational Hunting in Ticino. Further articles can be found in the section Psychology & hunting.

Predators as unwelcome competition

The need for control is particularly evident in dealings with predators, writes Mattioli. The narratives of “wildlife management” and “herd protection” serve to eliminate wolf, bear and lynx. Behind this lies less a fear for livestock than the fact that these species regulate wildlife populations themselves. In doing so, they deprive recreational hunting of one of its most important justifications and are perceived as competition.

The public does not want an expansion

Mattioli bases her call for greater protection on a recent survey by Ipsos Doxa for the Fondazione Capellino, which Wild beim Wild has already reported on. A total of 7,002 adults in Italy were surveyed between 28 July and 4 August 2026. Only 3 percent want to promote recreational hunting. 27 percent would like to abolish it, 13 percent want to reduce it so drastically that it disappears, and 35 percent want to limit it to a few emergency cases. 17 percent want to keep the current law, and 6 percent have no opinion.

The result stands in sharp contrast to the Meloni government's planned hunting reform, against which demonstrations were recently held in Milan. Background on this is provided by the article «Italy's Sparatutto Law».

Analysis: The motive behind the facade

Mattioli's article names what hunting associations hide behind terms such as tradition, game management and regulation. How openly this motive is sometimes expressed was shown by France's hunting official Willy Schraen with his statement “I enjoy killing animals”. Once subsistence is no longer a valid justification, all that remains is the pleasure of killing, which can be justified neither ecologically nor ethically.

This debate is equally relevant to Switzerland. Here too, predators are cleared for killing on the grounds of herd protection, while recreational hunting defends its role as an allegedly indispensable regulator. Mattioli's question is therefore just as pertinent north of the Alps: why do we tolerate a leisure activity whose very essence is killing?