When Hobby Hunters Feed, Deer Get Sick

According to the Vorarlberger Nachrichten, there are «locally too many red deer» in the Silbertal. The response: Vorarlberg’s hobby hunters are now massively intervening in the population through hunting for tuberculosis, with culling numbers being ramped up.

Editorial team Wild beim Wild — 23 November 2025

At the same time, ORF reported that tuberculosis in red deer is more widespread in Vorarlberg than ever before: 99 animals tested positive, the control zone is being expanded, and culling figures are set to increase significantly.

The message to the public is clear: too many deer, therefore more deer must die. Yet the crucial question remains unaddressed: who created this «too many» in the first place?

What lies behind tuberculosis in red deer

Tuberculosis in red deer is caused primarily by Mycobacterium bovis and Mycobacterium caprae. It is a slow-progressing, chronic infectious disease that can also affect cattle and humans.

Official fact sheets have noted for years:

The disease in wildlife occurs in Austria predominantly in red deer in Tyrol and Vorarlberg.
Red deer can serve as a reservoir for the pathogen and pose a risk to cattle populations.
In regionally confined areas, prevalence rates of up to around one quarter of the population have been recorded.

Tuberculosis in the Alpine region is therefore not a natural occurrence that falls from the sky. It is a regional, human-made problem. And at the very centre of this problem stand winter feeding stations and recreational hunting management practices.

Feeding sites as hubs of infection

How does red deer actually become infected with TB? Veterinary authorities and specialist literature describe two main routes:

Direct contact between animals
Uptake of pathogens through contaminated feed and the feeding environment

This is precisely where the bridge to hunting practice lies:

In Graubünden, a ban on wildlife feeding was imposed as a precautionary measure, because tuberculosis in red deer can be transmitted through direct contact and contaminated feed.
Along the border with Vorarlberg and Tyrol, Switzerland has maintained a ban on private ungulate feeding since 2016, explicitly due to the TBC risk posed by red deer populations in Austria. This ban was extended indefinitely in 2024.
The Vorarlberg Forest Association publicly calls for the abolition of wildlife feeding stations, describing them as a major source of infection. Reducing feeding would improve the TBC situation, according to its assessment.

Studies on red deer in the Alpine region show that animals at feeding stations and in winter enclosures frequently congregate in high densities for months at a time. Contact patterns, feces, saliva, and aerosols concentrated at a single point thus become an epidemiological time bomb.

In short: feeding stations are not «wildlife welfare» — they are ideal hubs for pathogens.

The hunters’ narrative: Too much wildlife, therefore more culling

The media portrayal creates the impression that hobby hunters are confronted with a problem caused by nature and must now intervene «responsibly» through mass culling. Talk of «locally excessive red deer populations» abounds, and recreational hunting is being «adapted» accordingly.

In reality, the situation is entirely self-inflicted:

Red deer populations have been artificially maintained at high levels through feeding over decades, which intensifies the spread of disease.
Migratory movements are channelled by roads, settlements, and forestry interests.
In practice, planning is heavily oriented towards cull quotas, forestry interests, and trophy hunting, rather than a holistic ecological assessment of forest, wildlife, and disease dynamics.

When wildlife is tethered to feeding troughs for months, concentrated at a few points, and simultaneously denied habitat in valley zones, disease and conflict are an inevitable consequence. Blaming the animals themselves for these outcomes after the fact is convenient, but scientifically questionable.

The current strategy in Vorarlberg therefore amounts, in truth, to a double punishment of wildlife:

First, deer are brought into unnaturally high densities through feeding
Then they are shot in large numbers under the banner of disease control

Animal health or protection of economic interests?

Officially, the measures are aimed at protecting cattle herds and agriculture. Red deer are portrayed as a danger to grazing livestock, the culling zone has been expanded, and shooting quotas increased.

Yet the same official documents also show:

Tuberculosis in cattle in the Alpine region is closely linked to the shared use of mountain pastures by wildlife and livestock.
The risk increases with high wildlife densities and artificial concentration, such as at feeding stations.
Successful strategies rely on monitoring, reducing these artificial concentration points, and better coordination among all stakeholders — not on shooting records alone..

Taking animal health seriously would mean first changing the husbandry and land-use conditions that create the problem. Instead, the animal itself is declared the source of disruption and removed from the system.

Consistent disease control starts with humans, not with deer.

What would an honest response to the TB situation among red deer in Vorarlberg look like?

A consistent end to private feeding and baiting operations in the affected area.
Dismantling of feeding structures that have been producing high densities for years.
Low-disturbance retreat areas so that red deer can live out their natural migratory ecology instead of being stacked in bottlenecks.
Transparent data: publication of prevalence rates, shooting figures, feeding station locations, and monitoring methods.
Independent scientific oversight that is not tied to hunting interests.

Switzerland already demonstrates that a feeding ban in TB-risk areas is feasible and is considered a reasonable precautionary measure.

As long as red deer in Vorarlberg are deliberately concentrated during winter, every call for «massive population regulation» on account of TB is hypocritical. The symptoms are being treated while the actual cause remains untouched: the feeding policy and the recreational hunting system built upon it.

The images from the Silbertal tell only the final scene of a long story. What remains invisible are the years in which red deer were systematically fed, directed, and densified. First the deer is turned into an object of hunting exploitation, then into a scapegoat for a disease process that would not exist in this form at all without human management.

Anyone who seriously wants to combat disease must start with humans: with feeding practices, population management, and land use. Not with pulling the trigger.

Further articles