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Can Animal Friends Be Forced to Kill Animals?
“There are fundamental questions of law that are calling for a decision by the highest court.” While the presiding judge, Ansgar Schäfer, spoke these words, a wild pig lying before the courthouse in a wheelbarrow couldn’t call out anymore. A hunter had shot it dead.
The boar, a magnificent animal weighing about 400 pounds had been shot in the gut the night before in total darkness. With its last bit of strength, the mortally wounded animal dragged itself into the hunting grounds of the Farm Terra Nova near Würzburg, where it expired after 10 hours of agonizing suffering and was found only the next day.
The farmers simply took it with them to the court process – as a graphic example of why they have applied to suspend hunting on their property, thus going to court.
The wild pig shot down was not the only “shot” on this morning. The next one came from the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Dr. Christian Sailer, when he asked the judges if one of them is a hunter. For, surely a judge who practices hunting can scarcely make an objective decision on the desire of the farmers to no longer be forced to hunt on their own property. When the judges refused to answer this question, Sailer took a precautionary step, rejecting them on grounds of bias. When this application was rejected, the lawyer let the “shot” ring out, saying that he knows presiding judge Schäfer is a hunter, thus challenging him on grounds of bias. The judge falters, beats around the bush, but doesn’t want to admit anything. “Apparently it is slanderous to be called a hunter,” an observer stated at the end. After a short conference, the judges also denied the second motion to disqualify the judge on grounds of bias.
And then came the next unexpected shot: The lawyer and the plaintiffs left the courtroom out of protest! Dr. Christian Sailer explained that this was no longer a proceeding that could be taken seriously and that apparently the decision had been made long before. Under these circumstances serious negotiations could no longer be relied upon and therefore the process would have to continue without the plaintiffs and their lawyer.
With the plaintiffs, about 100 animals friends also left the courtroom, who had followed the opening of this juristic premier with great expectations: It is the first time in Germany that a landowner, with a hunting ground on his property, has appealed against the official hunting requirement on all property.
In Germany, one may refuse military service with weapons, but not military service in field and woods against defenseless creatures. And a Moslem butcher may, by referring to his faith, butcher animals that are fully conscious, as the German Supreme Court had determined just a few days before this process. But a peace loving person may not, by referring to his conscience and faith, refuse to torture an animal or have it tortured – as soon as he owns land encompassing a hunting ground.
How can this be explained to logically thinking people – above all abroad? A Slovenian and a Spanish television crew had traveled to Würzburg to find answers to this question. The statements made by the representatives of the hunting authorities after the proceedings, who refuse to give the farmers permission to stop hunting on their land, can be simply summarized with the stultifying tradition of “that’s how its always been.” So we have to keep the laws.
Which, however, they don’t do themselves! Because Article 4 of the German Constitution is also one of these laws: “The freedom of faith, of conscience and the freedom of religious and ideological creeds are inviolable.” This fundamental right of freedom of religion, which in the case of the Moslem butcher was placed above the state goal of “animal protection” as expressed in the constitution, was left by the wayside in this case.
The court continued in session without the plaintiffs, tried to solve the case with a juristic trick: Fundamental rights are valid only for natural persons, not for the agricultural operation that had filed the application. However, decades ago “religious activity” was allowed to the Catholic “German Youth,” when it collected old clothes for charitable purposes.
And instead of allowing honest citizens of the state their fundamental rights, the officials presented horror scenes of numerically exploding hordes of wild pigs, which, if hunting were stopped, would devour whole woods and fields. The fact that these speculations cannot be confirmed by experts and, in addition, there are numerous facts contradicting them, did not move the court, which flatly classified the officials’ statements as “applicable.”
And so, an absurd court proceeding was quickly brought to an end before almost completely empty seats.
Anyone who became weary of the proceedings, which had become quite boring, and glanced out of the window could see the Mary fortress high above in the autumn sun, below which the Würzburg Administrative Court had been built as a “nice symbol.” The Mary fortress, for hundreds of years the domicile of Würzburg bishops, represents the power of the Church, which until today controls the state and thus also a large part of the justice system. The killing and torturing of animals has become something taken purely for granted under the Catholic and Lutheran flags – but not under the sign of Jesus, the Christ, on whom the peaceful farmers from Terra Nova base themselves. Like the Early Christians, they reject every kind of violence; they neither kill nor eat animals. They grow their food without chemical poisons or artificial fertilizers, but also without solid or liquid manure. They have established a private connective-biotope-system that is unique in Germany, in which grazing animals such as cattle and sheep have found a new home – liberated from the fear of one day being fetched by the butcher.
Churches, officials and the hunting lobby still form a nearly impenetrable mesh. And so, it can be considered a success when this hypocritical clique becomes visible to the public – especially in front of foreign television cameras. This includes a judge who is a hunter and will not admit it. Or the county councilor, Waldemar Zorn, whose administrative office rejected the application to suspend hunting, and who for years was a high official in the diocese of Würzburg. For years now, he has allowed the farmers of Terra Nova to be harassed by his bureaucrats. As chairman of the county hunting authority, he is also responsible for the turbulences that have caused a stir during recent weeks: hordes of wild pigs, running through Veitshöchheim (near Würzburg) and causing considerable damage – frightened by an unrestrained hunting drive, for which, from time to time, almost all closed hunting seasons were suspended. This is how the social system of the herds was destroyed; the wild pigs multiplied and can hardly be controlled. But they blame the situation on hunting opponents …
Anyone who can still think sees through this game. And perhaps he also wonders, looking through the courtroom windows, at the children being brought by their mothers to the kindergarten next door. “What kind of world are these children growing up in? In a world of stultifying “tradition,” where killing animals continues to be an everyday event? Or in a world in which the conscience of people who have an empathy for all the creatures of creation is respected?
In any case, this legal dispute will continue – if necessary, all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg.
Causes of the Wretched State of Wild Pigs: The Hunters
Just in time for the court case on suspending hunting, an article was published in the hunting magazine PIRSCH, in which the hunters openly admit that they themselves are the perpetrators of the “Wretched State of Wild Pigs.”
Excerpt from a commentary by Hans-Joachim Duderstaedt in the December issue of PIRSCH:
“To close, the question of what we actually want in connection with the gamekeeping of wild pigs must be basically allowed. Aside from all the joys of hunting that we are granted through the wild pigs, we are unfortunately not able to deal with the sows – and this, countrywide – in such a way that we can talk about a population that is socially and biologically stable. Despite wild pig circles, gamekeeping associations and the like, which deplorably, often function only on paper, proof of the sustainable gamekeeping of various age categories of wild pigs can presently be found almost nowhere. This includes satisfactory numbers of leading sows and mature boars (over 5 years of age). Where does this leave the obligation for gamekeeping under § 1 of the German hunting law?
Our wild pig populations are (or were they?) highly disorganized socially and biologically; their structure resembling rather a “kindergarten!” The term asocial is most applicable, because the social structures have been destroyed. Mature boars are rare exceptions; “children are giving birth to children,” thus provoking a dramatic increase in dwarfing the size of sows. Through this, we hunters (!) have created a wild pig population that is highly susceptible.”
“We hunters have created the halo that hovers around these old boars. Its clever earthiness and unpredictability have made him for many hunters the most coveted prey in our woods and hunting grounds.”
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