Did a recreational hunter shoot a leashed female dog during a walk?
Police are investigating the case of a female dog that was shot in Güssing in Burgenland, Austria.
On the afternoon of 23 January 2025, a dog owner was walking her two leashed dogs along a farm track beside an open field.
The 48-year-old woman heard a bang followed immediately by the whimpering and yelping of her three-year-old French shepherd dog. Shortly afterwards, a second bang was heard.
Gunshot wound on the dog's back
The dog owner immediately returned to her car and placed the dogs in the dog crate.
A veterinarian treated the female dog and confirmed a gunshot wound. The shot severed both the upper and lower skin along with the fatty tissue on the dog's back. Another case of crime in the context of recreational hunting.
District hunting master: Please don't go for walks at dusk
At the end of the video report, the district hunting master appeals to the public not to go walking with dogs at dusk, as that is a time that recreational hunters urgently need for recreational hunting. An appeal that makes the priorities of the recreational hunting community abundantly clear.
The owner filed a complaint; investigations are now underway against unknown perpetrators. The case is reminiscent of further mistaken-identity shootings by recreational hunters.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
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.
