Valais Recreational Hunter Shoots Livestock Guardian Dog Instead of Wolf
The wolf massacre in the canton of Valais also involves specially trained recreational hunters — the crème de la crème.
Livestock guardian dog shot at night
In Oberems, a livestock guardian dog was mistakenly identified as a wolf and shot.
The incident occurred a few days ago at night in the district of Leuk VS, according to nau.ch.
A fatal mix-up
The dog was supposed to protect the sheep while they were on the pasture. A trophy hunter lying in wait for wolves mistook the dog for a wolf and fired accidentally.
The dog died, resulting in a loss of approximately 8’000 francs that taxpayers must cover for the training and replacement of the livestock guardian dog. It was therefore not only a tragic, but also a very costly hunting error.
The exact circumstances of the tragic incident remain unclear.
Update 22.12.2023: Wildlife warden rather than recreational hunter
Nau.ch reported on 21.12.2023 that a recreational hunter had mistaken a guardian dog for a wolf.
On Friday, 22.12.2023, the Valais hunting service announced that it was in fact a professional wildlife warden. The Geneva model with professional wildlife wardens demonstrates that wildlife management without recreational hunting can function without such mix-ups.
Dossier: Wolf in Switzerland: Facts, Politics and the Limits of Hunting
| You can help all animals and our planet with compassion. Choose compassion on your plate and in your glass. Go vegan. |
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.
