The images have probably not left you: an American woman killing an ibex live and posing proudly with her horns as a trophy. Authorized in Valais, the practice of these safaris had triggered a huge scandal in public opinion after the broadcast last fall of a report on “Mise au Point”. This Tuesday, 70,000 signatures were given to the Valais cantonal authorities in the form of a petition, reports “Le Nouvelliste.”
Financial interest
These ibex safaris allow wealthy foreigners to come and shoot these emblematic animals of the Alps for a large sum of money. We do not know what action will be taken on this petition, which is not legally binding as a referendum or an initiative can be. Head of the hunting service, Peter Scheibler indicates to our colleagues that he has “received no instructions to modify this practice”, which represents 10% of his operating budget.
Prohibition in sight
For the record, the State Councilor Jacques Melly had confided, a few days after the broadcast of the RTS, that the project to ban these shots had been underway since April of last year. “We did not wait for the program” Mise au Point “to look into this dossier, which is over 40 years old,” he said. A discussion within the framework of the 2021 budget should therefore be necessary.
To justify the practice, its defenders explain that it is a question of regulating the population of ibex, which will be done with or without foreign hunters. The fact remains that scientifically, the argument struggles to hit the mark with specialists since the ibex targeted for their trophies are often the oldest with the widest genetic background.
Created: 10.03.2020, 6:26 p.m.
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