In Nunningen, activists filmed a driven hunt. Several deer apparently fled into the village. Animal rights activists are calling it animal cruelty – David Clavadetscher of the militant hunting association Jagd Schweiz rejects the criticism.
Editorial staff, November 15, 2025
https://wildbeimwild.com/en/the-misleading-statements-by-hunting-association-switzerland-boss-david-clavadetscher/
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From the outside, hobby hunting often appears to be an orderly ritual: men and women in green, well-rehearsed procedures, alleged precision and traditional knowledge.
Listening to the words of David Clavadetscher, Managing Director of Jagd Schweiz, one could almost believe that hobby hunting is a harmonious, safe and almost gentle intervention in nature.
But anyone who looks more closely and takes scientific findings, documented incidents, and real-life experiences seriously will realize that a large part of this portrayal is simply untenable. And sometimes it’s even the opposite of reality.
“Driven hunting is a regulated, peaceful hunt” – wishful thinking instead of reality
In an article on 20min.ch , Clavadetscher emphasizes that driven hunts are “calm” and “controlled.” However, for the animals, there is absolutely nothing calm about them.
Wildlife research is clear: driven hunts – especially those involving dogs – are among the most severe stressors that deer and other game can be exposed to. Measurable spikes in stress hormones, panicked flight reactions, disorientation, and increased risk of injury are scientifically documented. Stress hormones influence survival processes: cortisol and adrenaline affect metabolism, and increased activity before the shot can already cause changes in muscles, negatively impacting meat quality. Game from driven hunts shows up to 10 times higher cortisol levels than animals from quiet, controlled hunts. Game from driven hunts exhibits higher lipid oxidation and sometimes lighter-colored meat. This indicates stress before death. Intense flight/stress → glycogen depletion → risky pH values (DFD meat).
When a deer, in mortal fear, runs through forests, across meadows, and occasionally even into villages because of barking dogs and armed beaters, it is above all one thing: pure stress. A process that has nothing to do with calm, but rather with fear, exhaustion, and the survival instinct.
Clavadetscher’s ignoring of these facts and instead invoking a “quiet hunt” is not only a trivialization, it is an attempt to defuse the social debate before it can even begin.
Fifteen years ago, the IG Wild beim Wild (Wild with Wild) documented driven hunts in Graubünden during special snow hunts, using cars and cell phones by amateur hunters. Horrific images that one never forgets. Much of what happened was illegal and simply bestial.
“Wild animals don’t flee to the village” – A claim that contradicts all experience.
The statement that wild animals don’t flee into settlements because of recreational hunting is so sweeping that it almost sounds cynical. The reality is quite different: Deer, stags, and wild boar repeatedly find themselves in populated areas under the stress of hunting. Not because they want to, but because they are literally suffocated in the forest. In doing so, they cross roads with hunting dogs in tow, causing numerous traffic accidents.
Whether in Switzerland, France, or Germany: Cases are documented everywhere in which wild animals appear in gardens, backyards, or even school grounds because they panic during driven hunts. In a densely populated country like Switzerland, this is no wonder: When the forest is small, the hunting parties large, and the dogs fast, the animal has no choice but to go wherever it can, even if that means through a residential area.
Clavadetscher’s statement not only contradicts scientific findings on escape behavior, it also contradicts common sense once again.
“Hunters don’t just miss their shots” – Statistics say otherwise.
Perhaps the most persistent narrative of the hunting lobby is that hobby hunters are highly precise and that misfires are practically impossible.
But the reality is more sobering and crueler for the animals: wounding shots are an integral part of hunting practice. Even under optimal conditions, animals are regularly not killed instantly, but wounded, continue running, and suffer for minutes to hours, sometimes days, before they are found or die a painful death.
Hobby hunters know this. Authorities know this. Some cantons even factor in additional losses as a general rule, because they know full well that not every shot animal is found.
Against this background, Clavadetscher’s statement seems like a shield: not based on facts, but motivated by communication.
Anyone who admits that animals are regularly shot and bleed to death while fleeing would inevitably have to ask themselves: Is this cruel practice still justifiable in the 21st century?
“There hasn’t been a single accident involving non-hunters in the last 20 years” – A half-truth is a whole lie.
This statement is often trotted out when criticism arises regarding the public safety of recreational hunting. But the truth is more complicated and uncomfortable.
Even though individual categories of accidents are rare, there is a long list of documented incidents:
- Shot sheep, horses, llamas, cows, etc.
- Hobby hunters killed by other hobby hunters
- Single-vehicle accidents involving weapons
- Stray bullets in gardens and living rooms
- injured or fatally struck pets
- dangerous hunts in the immediate vicinity of settlements with children
- Shots fired at pedestrians or mountain bikers
- Deadly family and relationship tragedies (femicides) involving hunting weapons
In light of this reality, the statement “Nothing will happen” is not only wrong, it is irresponsible.
“Hunting takes place in autumn, when young animals are independent.”
Here, too, only a fraction of the truth is presented: young animals are no longer dependent on their mothers in autumn, depending on whom you ask. In the canton of Jura, recreational hunting of deer and other animals only begins at the start of October because the mothers are still lactating. In Graubünden, however, the slaughter always begins a month earlier. Thus, a vast patchwork of cruel regulations exists throughout Switzerland for many animal species and their young. In spring, recreational hunters stage media-friendly rescues of fawns from being killed by mowing machines. A few months later, they treacherously and cowardly shoot around 10,000 fawns in the back each year.
At the same time, the most energy-critical time of the year begins for wild animals.
Hunting stress means:
- increased heart rate
- increased escape distances
- increased calorie consumption
- Risk of injury and disorientation
What Clavadetscher omits: Every escape costs energy, which in winter can mean the difference between life and death.
The hunting lobby is romanticizing the situation – reality tells a different story.
David Clavadetscher tries to portray recreational hunting as a modern, safe, and humane practice. However, his statements hardly stand up to scrutiny. They are based on a mixture of downplaying the risks, omissions, and tradition, not on biology, ethology, or safety statistics. This is due to the abysmal training for hunting licenses and a lack of continuing education. The IG Wild beim Wild (Wildlife Interest Group) repeatedly hears from recreational hunters, who have at least some understanding of biology, that hunting training is a disgrace.
Recreational hunting is not a harmless hobby. It is not a peaceful ritual. It is not a stress-free event for wild animals.
It is a practice that panics, injures, and kills animals, and in doing so, repeatedly endangers humans and pets.
The public has a right to honesty. And anyone who tries to hide reality behind feel-good, green-tinted rhetoric must be asked: Whose interests are truly at stake here? Those of the animals or those of the hobby hunters?
Hobby hunter environmental disaster
In the chaos that nature finds itself in after decades of being managed and cared for by hobby hunters , the proportion of threatened species is higher in Switzerland than in any other country in the world. For decades, these contract killers have been creating an ecological imbalance in the cultivated landscape, with sometimes dramatic consequences (protective forests, diseases, agricultural damage, and much more). Over a third of plant, wildlife and fungal species are considered threatened. Switzerland also ranks last in Europe when it comes to designating protected areas for biodiversity. It is precisely these circles of hobby hunters, with their lobbying efforts, who have been responsible for this situation for decades through politics, media, and legislation. They are the ones who notoriously block modern, ethical improvements in animal welfare and sabotage serious animal and species conservation. Hobby hunters regularly oppose the creation of more national parks in Switzerland because their concern is not nature, biodiversity, species conservation, or animal welfare , but rather the pursuit of their perverse, bloody hobby.
Did you know…
- that innocent young wolves are liquidated in Switzerland?
- that hobby hunters lie about the quality of wild meat and that processed wild meat is carcinogenic like cigarettes, asbestos, or arsenic according to the WHO?
- that according to a study, the lead contamination of golden eagles and bearded vultures is highest in the Swiss Alps due to the ammunition used by hobby hunters?
- that the ‘Waidgerechtigkeit’ (hunting fairness) of hobby hunters diametrically contradicts animal welfare law and is a fata morgana?
- that hunting is war, where animal competitors are simply liquidated?
- that there are countless illegal and unmarked high seats in nature, some of which are so rotten that they pose a danger to children and can lead to human fatalities?
- that countless people are killed or injured by hunters’ weapons every year, sometimes so severely that they are wheelchair-bound or have limbs amputated?
- that around 120,000 completely healthy deer, red deer, foxes, marmots, and chamois are mostly senselessly killed in Switzerland every year?
- that due to hobby hunters, it’s hardly possible to live in harmony with wildlife or even see wildlife?
- that shotgun blasts make hares scream like small children, and ‘shot’ deer and red deer have their entrails torn out so that they leave tracks for the follow-up hunt?
- that the claim by hobby hunters that cruel wildlife massacres are necessary to regulate animal populations is scientifically refuted?
- that hobby hunters openly admit that hunting is about the ‘lust for killing’ and ‘the joy of making prey’ of a pathological passion?
- that hobby hunters have no sixth sense and still regularly claim to shoot only sick and weak animals, which is naturally not true in practice?
- that hobby hunters travel abroad for trophy hunting, far from all species and hunting conservation regulations, and that there are even Swiss hobby hunter travel organizers for such debile hunting pleasures?
- that the vast majority are not legitimized professional hunters but exercise hunting as a hobby, sport, and leisure activity, which is not ethical and actually contradicts animal welfare law?
- that 99.07% of civilized people in Switzerland are not hobby hunters, so only 0.3% of hobby hunters enjoy these bloody activities?
- that these wildlife killers don’t hunt based on scientific justifications?
- that protected species shouldn’t be part of hunting law because hobby hunters are overwhelmed with species conservation and repeatedly shoot animals on the red list, like lynx, wolf, hare, partridge, quail, etc., for fun?
- that hobby hunters deliberately decimate certain animal species to have no competition for their unnatural behavior (fox, lynx, wolf, birds of prey, etc.)?
- that wildlife dies before the hobby hunter can even fire a single shot, and that this is precisely what needs to be prevented, which is the central idea of care and management, as well as hunting planning?
- that in wild boars (and foxes), usually only the lead sow has offspring, but due to their culling, all female animals within the group reproduce, and that’s why we have a wild boar boom?
- that grazing animals – deer, roe deer, etc. – originally lived mainly diurnally on fields and meadows, like goats, sheep, cows, etc., and not in the forest?
- that wolves are vital for the health of wild ungulates in the long term because they prey on sick or weak animals with incredible precision, making them superior to hobby hunters?
- that foxes usually end up in the trash after senseless hunting?
- that foxes are mainly hunted today so that there are more hares, etc., for hobby hunters to eat? That the fox, however, doesn’t feed on hares to over 90% and never catches a healthy hare?
- that one can’t deal with hobby hunters in animal welfare just with gentleness, street festivals, prayer chains, etc. (a rough block needs a rough wedge)?
- that hobby hunters engage in a disrespectful mockery of living beings with hunter jargon?
- that it’s considered taboo to shoot high game during feeding or mating season, but hobby hunters have no scruples about doing this to predator competitors like foxes?
- that in some cantons, hobby hunters go hunting just for the tender flesh of a young animal?
- that hobby hunters shoot pregnant mother cows in front of their young or just young animals during the rearing period (post-special hunting)?
- that hobby hunters poison the environment, nature, humans, and animals with their ammunition?
- that bestiality, barbarism, cruelty, bloodshed, and senseless suffering can’t be cultural assets in a civilized society?
- that hobby hunters shoot around 10,000 roe deer fawns annually?
- that hobby hunters lure starving animals with food in harsh winters just to shoot them treacherously and cowardly?
- that hobby hunters use viciously trained dogs to eliminate foxes and badgers in burrows (den hunting)?
- that hobby hunters lure peaceful living beings into box traps, where they may suffer for days, waiting for their killer, or often undergo a long, agonizing death struggle (trap hunting)?
- that hobby hunters shoot peaceful wildlife while sleeping or sunbathing with modern precision rifles from ambush, injuring or killing them?
- that hobby hunters support awards, fur markets, prize ceremonies for trophy culture, trophy shows, fur trade, etc.?
- that hobby hunters hand shotguns to minor schoolchildren and practice killing with them?
- that hobby hunters often carry out their cruel acts in solitude, promoting animal torture?
- that hobby hunters often only severely injure wildlife, and the victims often suffer enormously under pain and fear until a bloodhound finds them and they are shot?
- that hobby hunters – apart from vivisection – inflict the most suffering and abuse on animals, also through the method of killing?
- that hunter-like love for animals and nature doesn’t delight in the existence of the beloved object but rather aims to possess it with skin and hair, culminating in making it prey through the act of killing?
- that hobby hunters promote browsing damage through hunting pressure, especially on predators like fox, lynx, and wolf?
- that hobby hunters open the door to asocial, unethical, and un-Christian behavior?
- that hobby hunters deprive the public of normal, natural animal observations and interactions?
- that there’s no greater, more toxic, and ammunition-contaminated torture product than wild meat?
- that there’s no uniform regulation across Switzerland regarding eye tests, shooting practice, etc., for hobby hunters?
- that there’s no psychological character test for hobby hunters?
- that there’s no alcohol ban for hobby hunters when shooting animals with their weapons?
- that hobby hunters enter schools to preach their hunter jargon and violence to children?
- that a court in Bellinzona recently confirmed that hunting associations promote practically everything that’s cruel, unnecessary, and heartless?
- that the association «Jagd Schweiz» primarily cultivates disrespect and a culture of violence – exactly the opposite of what a cultured person in our society should strive for.
- that alone in the Canton of Grisons, over 1,000 reports and fines are imposed on hobby hunters every year?
Exposing the Big Game 