During a pressure hunt in Kerschlach (Upper Bavaria), a pack of dogs followed a seriously wounded fox to a private estate.
This fox was looking for shelter in the garden of Andreas Nemitz. He instructed, according to the owner of the garden, injuries to the lower abdomen, between the hind legs, on the head and on his lips. © Andreas Nemitz
“I’ve never experienced anything so terrible in my life,” said Nemitz, the owner of the private garden. Many readers were also shocked by the report.
Above all, the hunt for foxes is criticized as such. Almost annihilating for the hunter side was the response to the drive hunt at Kerschlach (Germany), reported by the newspaper merkur.de.
Florian Pfütze, chairman of the Hunting Association of the district, now contradicts the allegations. He says: “What happened there that’s all right”!!
Florian Pfütze, had justified this hunt so that the spread of the fox tapeworm should be fought. Readers, however, refer to studies that show that vaccine baits are much more effective. The allegations of the readers ranged from not keeping closed seasons to the desire to kill!
Five or six hunting dogs were in Kerschlach, but they did not bark much – as is common with a pressure hunt. He doubts whether the Terriers used in Kerschlach were even suitable for their task as hunting dogs.
“A dog handler did not appear,” complains Nemitz. “Some residents expressed their astonishment and anger that they were uninformed about hunting in the village, so they could not make timely arrangements to protect their own pets.”
Nemitz has filed a complaint with the responsible prosecutor about the incident at the fox.
Pfütze does not want to leave it that way. “We are terribly sorry, but what the dogs have done is fine. They smelled a “sick” animal and wanted to relieve it of their suffering, “he says, although he knows he was not there.” The dogs were a well-rehearsed and “recognized pack, who knew what it does”!
Whether the dogs hurt the fox first, or whether the fox had already been shot during the hunt, opinions differ. One thing is certain: Nemitz has filed a complaint.
However, it is clear to him that the topic is difficult for citizens. “I can understand that citizens see the hunt emotionally, but we are doing something good (!!!)” he says.
“The smaller, for example, a fox population, the less widespread diseases. It is a bit absurd that the people attribute lower intentions to hunters at all”!
Comment by the “Action Alliance Fox”, a nationwide initiative of more than 60 animal and nature conservation organizations against the fox hunt”:
“The case of the fox, allegedly shot by hunters and then hunted by a pack of dogs in Kerschlach, documents for everyone what is the order of the day in the hunting season. If the little vixen had been set up in the forest and killed there – like many of his fellow human beings – nobody would have heard of it.
In the way the hunters play down this incident, their sentiment becomes clear: one does not regret that the fox was shot and terrified by the pack of dogs, completely uncontrolled and hounded and attacked outside the hunt-hunting area. One does not regret that he had to suffer and run in panic and great pain for his life, before he was finally killed.
One only regrets that “outsiders should have witnessed the incident in Kerschlach”.
That was “unattractive”, but something “what happened there” was not illegal and “okay”. Here there is no compassion, insight or guilt consciousness;
The hunters are only concerned with their image. The action is not questioned, and as long as no “outsider” witness to what the hunters are doing, apparently nobody bothers them either.
Well, we find it – most probably the most empathetic people – absolutely not “in order” what was done to this fox, apart from the potential danger to local residents and pets. To claim that the hunters acted in the public interest, and to want to justify this massacre even with the fight against the fox tapeworm, can hardly be surpassed in impudence. On the contrary, scientific studies – such as a recent multi-year experiment in France – show that intensive hunting even promotes the spread of tapeworm (!).
The claims of the hunters is ultimately just about to generate an alibi for the equally cruel and pointless hunt on the “loot rival” Fox – and distract from the true motives for the (hobby) hunting. Anyone who casts a glance into the big German hunting magazines, in which hunters proudly pose with their bloody prey, can guess what this really is all about.
No, the scandal is not that someone had to watch the cruel pictures in Kerschlach, but that they even exist.
The indignation over the incident shows at least that fewer and fewer people are willing to accept the pointless animal cruelty caused by hobby hunters speechless and idle.
My best regards, Venus
Carlos Alvarado Quesada, ther new president of Costa Rica
World Animals Voice 