Psychopathy: Understanding Recreational Hunters Better

What kind of human being can take pleasure in taking the life of another living creature? Recreational hunters as typical sociopaths hate creatures that are more beautiful, more intelligent and more social than they are.

Wild beim Wild Editorial Team · 14. February 2023

Serial murders and animal hunts are strikingly similar

At first glance it may seem unlikely, but what if the same distorted psychopathy that drives a recreational hunter to chase a fox and shoot it could also drive a man to break into a house and ram a knife into the body of the person inside?

Serial murders and animal hunts are strikingly similar. Wildlife researcher Gareth Patterson points out that both perpetrators like to display themselves in poses glorifying violence. Like serial killers, recreational hunters must prove their status as persons who possess power over life and death.

Amygdala disrupted in violent offenders

Neuropsychologists confirm: The amygdala, the emotion-sorting office in the brain, is noticeably underdeveloped or disrupted in violent offenders and psychopaths. Recreational hunting weapons lead to abuse in our entire social life. There are studies showing that 90% of violent criminals began as animal abusers or through hunting.

It is time we recognize recreational hunting for what it really is: A pastime for psychopaths with poorly developed moral hygiene.
IG Wild beim Wild

More on the topic Psychology and recreational hunting, Animal welfare problems and Crime and hunting.

More in the dossier: Psychology of hunting

You can help all animals and our planet with compassion. Choose compassion on your plate and in your glass. Go vegan.

More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Psychology of recreational hunting we put research, motives and social consequences into perspective. The scientific evidence is presented in the overview Studies on the Effects of Recreational Hunting.

The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.