Swiss Recreational Hunters Hunt Primates in Africa
Killing animals for trophies is in some cases criminal, but always wrong — a culture of barbarism. In the relevant hunting magazines and at hunting fairs, recreational hunters and travel operators advertise the «thrill to kill» of trophy hunting abroad.
Trophy hunting around the globe, once a domain of the British and Americans, is booming in Switzerland too.
507 Trophies of Protected Species in 10 Years
Around 1,500 recreational hunters from Switzerland travelled the globe each year before the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2010 and 2020, these recreational hunters imported 507 trophies of protected species; among them 56 primates, 31 wolves, 40 brown bears, 24 lions, 24 leopards, 46 elephants, 2 white rhinoceroses, 7 cheetahs and 1 polar bear.
We are witnessing the most dramatic extinction of species since the age of the dinosaurs — it cannot be acceptable that Swiss recreational hunters are permitted to kill even endangered and protected species solely for the sake of a trophy.
IG Wild beim Wild
Poverty Reduction or Greenwashing?
The recreational hunting community likes to portray itself as a force for good. However, the multimillion-dollar business primarily benefits foreign hunting tour operators, while according to a study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), local communities receive at best a «starvation wage»: just 0.3 US dollars per person per year.
The go-to argument of job creation also doesn’t hold up: according to the IUCN report, recreational hunting creates just 15,000 part-time jobs across the eight most important African hunting countries. Photo tourism, by contrast, generates billions and creates many times more jobs.
RECREATIONAL HUNTER RADAR
On the trail of hidden animal welfare offences, poaching and/or criminal activity? Report suspicious cases to us! Help with the great Recreational Hunter Radar.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. 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.
