Freshly exposed? – Hundreds of shot pheasants cause a commotion

“During the pheasant hunts in Altlingenwarth and Großkrut, more than 200 pheasants were shot dead, including even chickens. “Small game, including the pheasant, is hardly available in the area anymore,” says an indignant hunter. As a sworn game warden, he is above suspicion and claims to have discovered that the shot birds were freshly released game previously released into the wild in the “Hamethof” district of the Prince of Liechtenstein. The keeper also claims to have discovered that the pheasants are aviary birds.

This makes him angry because the requirement for releasing game is that the animals must have lived in the wild for at least four weeks before the start of the shooting period. Everything else is forbidden! Some participants at the shooting festival reported that some pheasants could not even fly: “That is understandable given the way they were raised in aviaries.”

Allegations dismissed
Hans Jörg Damm, operations manager at the Wilfersdorf estate and forestry company of the Prince Liechtenstein Foundation, strongly denies the allegations – as does the state hunting association: “Every year in July, pheasants and partridges are released into the wild. Of course, this is in June – so timely – reported to the district administration.” Reference is also made to a scientific breeding project with monitoring. “We have built many playing fields in recent years and try to have as little impact on the game as possible. In the Hamet district there are more than 30 hectares of biodiversity strips and watering holes,” says Damm.

The estate manager does not deny that Halali is celebrated in the autumn: “In the autumn we hold individual hunting days, just like the neighboring areas do now. However, a maximum of ten percent of pheasants released into the wild are shot. The rest remains in nature and is intended to help increase the population. The partridges, whose ecological situation is even more sensitive, are not hunted at all.”