A topic on which I can be brief for a change.
Pets are not shot at. That’s it. You don’t catch them and shoot them in the trap. Unfortunately, there are people who are mentally not quite at the height and try to compensate for any suppressed inadequacies in a morbid to dangerous behavior (even towards people). A multifaceted topic with sometimes really deviant excesses.
However, this does not mean that I am against hunting per se. Not at all. I’ve also met great hunters, “real” hunters, who don’t shoot animals on a whim or for trophy hunting. Also as a “social” event I cannot gain anything from it. Here already a reorientation happens and federation masters remind already increased with Events a correct and decent hunt in, as I e.g. in the Steiermark was allowed to witness.
However there is also no justification, if dogs rush wild animals up to the death and possibly still tear. Dog owner inside and dog owners, who permit such a thing “actively”, have even fun in it or force it even belong naturally to the accountability pulled. There huntresses and hunters are to be understood absolutely. And I speak of correct rushing, not that a dog drives away times a crowd crows, which it will not catch anyway.
Only the hunter can know just badly whether the animal got out someone unintentionally, has torn itself from the dog leash or even a fool was the owner. We kill and eat game, but not domestic animals, at least not in our latitudes. Therefore, the legislator must prohibit the killing of pets by hunters or impose on these “professionals” also stricter penalties for such incidents. I am of the opinion that this is regulated in the Austrian animal protection law anywayedies, because the killing of domestic animals hardly corresponds to the “practice of the hunt”, which forms an exception of the TSchG. As a rule, pets will simply “escape” or run away and there is no justification here to inflict emotional damage on someone because he shoots a pet out of “rage and anger”.
As long as I don’t call myself a vegan, I can’t have anything against hunting. I personally prefer it to death in the slaughterhouse, but that’s another topic. However, every pet owner should think about where the food for his beloved animal comes from before he loses a bad word about hunters in general. We must all be careful not to generally over the comb. In the slaughterhouse, animals are not cuddled to death.
And if all these arguments are not enough, it is clear that pets create more jobs and economic output than damage caused by occasional “accidents” with wild animals.
It is important to hear both sides, to show willingness to listen and to understand. In local recreation areas I see it with the hunt halt then actually only problematically. The animal protection, also in the context of killings e.g. by hunt, has to enjoy absolute and unconditional priority in any case, otherwise there can be no approximate consensus. Here already with training and control must be paid attention to it. We need trigger-happy hunters just as little as terrorists!