Dumbing down of the people in the canton of St. Gallen

The IG Wild beim Wild (IG Wild with Wild) has always been very keen to support the hunting community in its public relations work.

Editorial Team Wild beim Wild — June 18, 2025

The hunting exams for this year were completed in St. Gallen on June 13, 2025.

A total of 36 amateur hunters passed the exams and can now receive their certificates of competence. This means that 73% of those who took the exams successfully completed their hunting training.

At the same time, the media are once again reporting how useless hunting training is. It is neither beneficial nor protective. Hobby hunting is not a scientific, ecologically sound, or professional form of wildlife management.

Hunting scene in the canton of St. Gallen: Conviction for illegal badger hunting

There are no other legally recognized associations whose members are as deeply entrenched in criminality as those involved in hunting. Modern hunting is characterized by a deficient ethical awareness and a high degree of irresponsibility.

Today's recreational hunting destroys the normal social coexistence of wild animals, the ecological balance, natural behaviors, family structures and social groups, use of burrows and hiding places, shift from day to night activity, increased reproduction of certain animal species, increased migration to unhunted settlement areas, unnatural animal concentrations in hotspots, ecological imbalance, lifelong, health-damaging psychological and physical stress of wild animals , unhealthy game meat and much more.

Facts, not tall tales.

More and more city dwellers are leaving their offices and venturing into nature – not just for relaxation, but also for nature conservation. If more meaningful opportunities for slowing down were offered, they wouldn't have to end up hunting, becoming jaundiced and intellectually bankrupt.

An ordinary person shouldn't have to obtain a firearms license to enhance biotopes or to care for and protect wildlife with decency, respect, and honor. Hobby hunters rescue fawns in the spring so they can shoot them in the autumn.

The cheerful pat on the back for the hobby hunter looks like this today, for example, when it comes to foxes: although every normal wildlife biologist knows (and countless studies and case studies point to this) that the senseless fox hunting is also a fabricated fairy tale – just hunters' tall tales.

St. Gallen: Stop the fox and badger massacre!

In place of the fox, any wild animal can be placed in the same way, after being cared for and maintained by militant hobby hunters.

Hobby hunters also intentionally cause serious disturbances in the natural balance of species through hunting small game, in order to be able to hunt more successfully.

Hobby hunters spread unspeakable suffering, terror, and misery among both people and wildlife. A court in Bellinzona recently confirmed that hunting associations promote virtually everything that is cruel, unnecessary, and heartless. Wild animals suffer because of hobby hunters. Not infrequently, hobby hunters also point their weapons at people .

Studies show that hobby hunters even promote and spread diseases.

Hobby hunters struggle to explain themselves in enlightened society. They are insufficiently, or not at all, educated. And so, most hunting license holders waddle through nature with the following attitude:

Predators must be killed.
Wild animals are fruit just waiting to be harvested.
Ecology is: poisoning the soil, groundwater and wildlife with ammunition.
to make as much noise as possible in the forest
Fur is fashionable
Meat consumption is healthy and innate to humans.
Hunting and animal cruelty are animal protection
Alcohol and other drugs are part of the fun of shooting.
Hunters' tales are science
Hunting is a deep meditation
Killing is a commandment of Moses
Hobby hunters are the advocates for wildlife.
etc.

Time and again, claims are made within the hobby hunting community that, upon closer examination, originate from hunting literature and similar unscientific sources. This is primarily due to the often inadequate training in hunting exam preparation courses, which are predominantly conducted by sometimes fanatical individuals with cult-like ideologies and do not require any formal qualifications. After completing their training, hobby hunters are relegated to the echo chamber of the hunting press, which constantly repeats their distorted and often inaccurate claims.

Within hunting clubs, members reinforce each other's existing views. This has created a closed and militant group that is largely unreceptive to new information. The fatal flaw is that the local press and politicians still believe that hunters possess expert knowledge, which is why they readily consult the local hobby hunter on all nature-related issues. In doing so, these hobby hunters also contaminate public discourse.

Hobby hunters are being harmed by officials.

Damage is caused at the point where violence is unleashed, just as it is at the point of impact. And this is quite concrete, even at the neuronal level. Scientists have discovered this through research. Neuropsychologists also confirm that the amygdala, a key brain region, is noticeably underdeveloped or impaired in violent offenders. When this central part of the brain is defective, the sensation of disgust, among other things, is suppressed.

Anyone who gets a hunting license therefore always receives two things: a license to kill and a license to become stupid.

"Proper hunting " has nothing to do with animal welfare. The "fair hunting" practiced by hobby hunters is diametrically opposed to animal welfare laws. "Proper hunting" is about as far removed from animal welfare laws as a cow is from riding a bicycle. Modern hobby hunting is essentially criminal. It's just that our legal system isn't yet advanced enough to address this in criminal law.

More and more people feel bothered or threatened by hobby hunting in the 21st century.

We commend the Canton of Geneva for its professional wildlife management system, free from recreational hunters and staffed by reputable game wardens. Like the rest of Switzerland, the Lake Geneva region boasts vineyards and other cultivated areas. However, they clearly employ humane and ethical approaches to wildlife management and implement intelligent measures to protect these crops. Game wardens do not organize driven hunts or use hunting dogs for this purpose. In Geneva, foxes, martens, badgers, birds, and other animals are not culled simply because it's hunting season. This is also reflected in the federal hunting statistics . Instead, practical deterrent measures, meaningful public education and support, and further training are conducted in collaboration with the game wardens. Safety, expertise, animal welfare, and ethics are paramount. Sanitary and therapeutic culling by game wardens, as practiced in the Canton of Geneva, is not the same as regulatory hunting based on hunters' tales or misguided understanding of nature.

Especially when it comes to hunting and recreational hunting, it is essential that the public pays close attention. Nowhere else is there so much manipulation with falsehoods and fake news. Violence and lies are two sides of the same coin. For decades, recreational hunting has been nothing more than a constantly costly and contentious issue, a patchwork of regulations and a point of contention for politicians, forestry and agriculture, government agencies, the judiciary, health insurance companies, insurance companies, animal welfare, environmental and nature conservation organizations, the police, the federal government, the media, and so on.

St. Gallen Hunting Administration Dossier: