The Home of Violence: A Case from Canton Zurich
The fourth episode titled 'The Home of Violence' addresses a particularly shocking case of massive cruelty toward cats in Canton Zurich. The case ended in court in December 2025 with an acquittal. The podcast discusses the background of this decision and provides critical analysis.
“In the Wardrobe”
Although animal protection has constitutional status in Switzerland, animals are often inadequately protected in practice. Behind well-known cases like Ramiswil, Hefenhofen or Oftringen are not isolated errors, but profound structural problems in enforcement.
TierCrime with VanDam makes visible how animal cruelty is trivialized in the supposed 'land of animal welfare'. The podcast examines the responsibility of authorities, courts and politics and deliberately focuses on information rather than sensation.
The message is clear: animal suffering begins with indifference.
The lawyers behind the podcast
- Damaris Kiefer, MLaw, is a legal specialist at the General Secretariat of the Courts of Canton Aargau.
- Vanessa Gerritsen, Dr. iur., is a legal research associate and member of the executive board of the Foundation for the Animal in the Law.
With their podcast, they make an important contribution to the public debate about animal cruelty, law enforcement and responsibility in Switzerland.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: 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.
