Animals are fellow creatures, not targets

An explicit, literal ban on hunting is rarely found among historical religious figures. Legends, later attributions and authentic core texts must therefore be carefully distinguished.

Anyone who does so will nevertheless recognise a remarkable convergence: across religions, respect for vulnerable living beings stands as a powerful ethical counterposition to hobby hunting.

Swami Sivananda and non-violence without exception

According to the current state of the sources, Swami Sivananda did not comment explicitly on hunting. Yet from his clearly formulated ethics of ahimsa, of non-violence and non-injury, it follows that he would have firmly rejected leisure and trophy hunting.

Sivananda defines ahimsa comprehensively as refraining from causing pain or harm to any living being at any time through thought, word or deed. For this rule there is «no excuse and no exception». He is particularly unequivocal about killing animals for food: he calls this a «great sin» and criticises people who kill innocent animals to satisfy their tongue and palate. If even avoidable killing for nourishment is condemned, this applies all the more to hunting whose purpose is entertainment, prestige or the acquisition of a trophy.

Francis of Assisi and the kinship of creatures

Francis of Assisi (1181/82 to 1226) did not regard animals as objects but as part of a divine family: he spoke of them as brothers and sisters and recognised them as creatures in their own right. His attitude is therefore hard to reconcile with hunting as a leisure pursuit, a search for trophies or an exercise of power, even though no explicit ban on hunting has been handed down from him.

A widely circulated quotation according to which Francis described helping animals as a «first duty» is problematic from the standpoint of source criticism and cannot readily be verified in his authenticated writings. What is robustly documented, however, is his fraternity with all creatures, and that amply suffices as an ethical yardstick.

The Hubertus legend and the moral reversal

The Hubertus legend recounts that the noble hunter, while pursuing a stag, beheld Christ between its antlers. According to this account, Christ asked: «Hubertus, why do you persecute me?», whereupon Hubertus is said to have renounced hunting.

Historically, this legend is not verified as a biographical fact; in the form handed down to us it emerged only long after Hubertus’s death. Nevertheless, the story contains a clear moral reversal: hunting is not sanctified; rather, the hunter abandons it. That is precisely why the interpretation of Hubertus as the patron saint of «ethical» hunting stands in open contradiction to the legend’s central message.

Buddha and Mahavira: consistent non-violence

The Buddha is usually not classified as a «saint» in the Christian sense, but he is a central religious figure of non-violence. The fundamental Buddhist precept requires that one neither kill any living being, nor have it killed, nor condone killing by others, and it grounds this in compassion for all living beings. The tradition explicitly criticises hunting: hunters, fishers and bird catchers are named as occupations that may be bound up with unfavourable karmic consequences. According to this ethic, hunting harms not only the animal that is killed, but also those animals that flee wounded and later die of their injuries.

Mahavira, the central teacher of Jainism, represents one of the most consistent doctrines of non-violence. Jain ahimsa requires that, as far as possible, no harm be inflicted on any sentient being. Hunting would clearly be incompatible with this, because it deliberately brings about pursuit, fear, injury and death.

Pope Francis and the limits of human dominion

In «Laudato si’», Pope Francis states that it is wrong to derive from humankind’s special position an «absolute dominion» over other creatures. He also holds that every act of cruelty towards a creature contradicts human dignity. This is not an explicit ban on all hunting, but it sets a clear ethical standard against avoidable cruelty to animals and against reducing wild animals to targets, prey or trophies.

It is notable that the Church as an institution set this standard itself in historical terms: at the Council of Trent (1545 and 1563), the Catholic Church forbade its own clerical bodies from taking part in hunting activities, because killing an animal and shedding blood fundamentally contradicts the nature of worship and religion. This line of thinking also appears in our argumentarium for professional game wardens.

One idea running through all traditions

From Francis of Assisi through the legend of St Hubert to Buddhist and Jain non-violence, one ethical idea runs through very different spiritual traditions: animals are fellow creatures, not targets. Wherever hunting produces avoidable suffering, persecution and killing for pleasure or prestige, it fundamentally contradicts this idea.

These religious voices complement a long line of secular criticism from Kant to Jane Goodall. An extended collection can be found in our article «Quotations on hunting».