Wild boar killer faces charges

The public prosecutor's office assumes that an unknown number of additional wild boars were also struck and injured.

Editorial team Wild beim Wild — 27 January 2016

The public prosecutor's office of Brugg-Zurzach has filed charges, including multiple counts of animal cruelty against a 55-year-old Swiss man who, on 7 October 2015, ran over a sow and three piglets in a field near Böttstein.

The accused, Valentin Stocker, has confessed. After a routine visit to one of his fields, on the evening of 7 October 2015, the accused spotted a sounder of around 20 wild boars in another field from the road on his way back to the village. The 55-year-old farmer decided — according to the prosecution — to deal with the animals on the spot using his off-road vehicle.

Specifically, the public prosecutor's office accuses the defendant of deliberately pursuing the wild boars across the field, which was accessible from the road, with his SUV. While most of the animals were apparently able to escape, the defendant struck three piglets with his vehicle so directly and severely that they died on the spot. A sow suffered a broken spine, lay injured in the field throughout the entire night, and could only be put out of her misery the following morning with a targeted shot. The public prosecutor's office assumes that an unknown number of additional wild boars were also struck and injured.

Accused claims “blackout”

In the course of the criminal investigation, the accused confessed to the act. He stated that the sight of so many wild boars had made him so furious — due to damage he had repeatedly suffered at the hands of wild boars — that it had triggered “a blackout.”

The case is pending before the District Court of Zurzach. The public prosecutor's office will announce its submissions at the main hearing.

Related dossiers and articles:

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.