Aargau wants to shoot raccoon

Raccoon spotted in Rheinfelden

A news scout reported a raccoon spotted in Rheinfelden in the canton of Aargau to a tabloid newspaper.

The danger to the native ecosystem is great, proselytises Reto Fischer, «specialist» at the Office for Hunting and Nonsense in the canton of Aargau, in the online medium.

Time and again, claims are made from within the hunting milieu that, upon closer analysis, have their origins in hunting literature and similarly unscientific sources.

No scientific basis for smear campaigns

According to experts, there is no scientific basis for the outright smear campaigns against these intelligent animals, nor for the intensive and cruel hunting of them.

The public would be well advised not to report raccoon sightings to the local authorities or hobby hunters, since the animals pose no direct danger to humans, unlike the hobby hunter.

Non-lethal measures possible

There are other options, non-lethal measures for controlling the raccoon population, as the EU regulation also provides for. But these are not applied, because the militant hobby hunters, in Switzerland too, prefer to take action themselves, sometimes invoking EU law.

The scaremongering being spread about «invasive» species such as the raccoon runs throughout the whole of Switzerland. As our article “Raccoons have a right to life too!» shows, this dynamic continues elsewhere as well.

• Keeping raccoons away in an animal-friendly manner
• Raccoons too have a right to life
• Dealing with “invasive” species – a critical analysis from a biological and legal perspective
• Neozoa
• Basel wants to kill raccoons
• Raccoons are not a danger
• Open letter to Katrin Schneeberger of the BAFU
• Removal of the raccoon from the lists of so-called invasive species
• Facts instead of hunters' tales about raccoons
• Office for Hunting and Nonsense in the canton of Aargau wants to shoot raccoons