On the Prowl: Why there are always more hunters in Germany

The deer lies motionless on the ground, a bullet from the hunter's rifle killed the animal, at dusk, on the edge of a Kornfelds in the heart of Hesse. Now the hunter is, together with two comrades in front of his prey, an oak branch in the Hand. The branch he is stuck with the dead animals into the mouth. It is the "last bite", a tradition-conscious hunters well-kept tradition: for the last Time, the man shows the beast his respect, before he guts it with his own hands and disassembled.

Sebastian Balzter

editor in the economy of the Frankfurt General Sunday newspaper.

Around 55 million pigs and 3.5 million cattle are slaughtered each year in Germany. Meat production for modern industrial society is a efficiency-driven mass business. As for rituals, no time, because time is money.

the conditions in the meat industry are not exactly conducive to the Welfare of the animals, but also for the workers and the meat-eaters that complain often, even people who grab on to the cool counter, even for a special offer. The Corona onset in the largest slaughterhouse in the country, the headquarters of the Tönnies group in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, this increased already widespread unease.

Who would not want to whine, but change something on one's own consumption behavior that can attention to animal welfare Labels, and in the future, just something more to pay for sausages, Steaks and minced meat. This is the moderate variant. Radical is to refrain from eating meat. Or to go even to hunt, as the three men on the night of the Hessian of the summer.

meat consumption of the hunter changes

One of them is Claus Senfft von Pilsach, 42 years old, during the day he works in Frankfurt for Deutsche Bank. The hunting license he has for almost three years. The consumption of meat for his family of four, reported Senfft von Pilsach, have changed significantly since then – venison, wild boar goulash, meatballs and meatloaf from the self-shot venison and game, and the from make now about 90 percent of own consumption. "We like to eat meat," says the hunter. "But cheap meat we buy now."

Well possible that the recent meat scandals are spurring the Trend toward a hunting license, in addition, from the statistics of the German hunting Association already long reading: Around 390,000 hunting license holders in the country there are currently, some 80,000 more than thirty years ago. Also, the number of in Germany, hunted wild animals is increasing continuously. Nearly 1.3 million deer and 600,000 wild boars in the past year.