Dispute over game in Valais Butchers shoot at hunters - who fire back
30 percent of hunters allegedly don't hit the game properly, criticize butchers in Upper Valais. That's why they don't accept their animals for processing. The hunters are outraged.
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- Upper Valais butchers no longer accept uncleanly shot wild animals for processing.
- The butchers criticize that 30 percent of hunters shoot poorly, causing the animal to suffer and contaminating the meat.
- The hunters of Upper Valais dispute this and deny that butchers are capable of judging the quality of a kill.
The hunters' aim is to hit the animal in the heart or lungs. If this is not successful, the animal suffers and the meat can be contaminated, for example by stomach contents that spread into the abdomen.
Cutting up such an improperly shot animal is not a pleasant job, says Willy Stocker, president of the Upper Valais butchers, to SRF. The meat is contaminated, a lot of it has to be cut away and disposed of, the expert continues - to the displeasure of the hunters.
Hunters in Valais are said to be particularly bad marksmen. And many butchers in Valais refuse to accept their animals for processing.
Hunters do not accept criticism
70 percent of hunters are very good, Stocker admits. The other 30 percent, however, "ruin everything" because they pull the trigger without having the animal exactly in their sights. This would also contradict the code of the national hunting association Jagdschweiz. This requires that a hunter only shoots when he is convinced that he can kill the game in a manner appropriate to the game, meaning the leaf shot described above.
The President of the Upper Valais Hunters' Association, Marc Truffer, does not accept the criticism. Butchers cannot judge whether an animal has been shot well or badly. A single butcher would only see a small proportion of the game shot. The Upper Valais hunters are also angry that butchers do not accept certain animals.
Butcher Stocker, on the other hand, is convinced that there are too many hunters in Valais and that there are too few wild animals in proportion.
According to its statistics, the canton of Valais issued at least one hunting license to 2553 hunters in 2023. There were also 51 guest cards. In 2015, around 2750 people had a hunting license - a historic high. The number of animals shot has fluctuated between 1152 and 1680 over the last 15 years, regardless of the number of hunting permits.
