Family Tragedy in Oldenburg, Germany

Hunter Shoots Wife and then Himself

Following a marital argument, a keen 48 year-old hunter first shot his 46 year-old wife and then himself. He just took his hunting rifle out of the cupboard and fired. The couple left behind two daughters aged 9 and 10, who heard the shots and found their parents dead.

This deed took place in the night of St. Hubertus Day (Nov. 3) of all days, the day on which all over Germany, St. Hubertus hunts are carried out and Hubertus masses are celebrated in the churches. Priests talk about the “protection of Creation” and that the hunters do their “handiwork in unity with nature.” But someone who goes hunting regularly and shoots animals has developed a routine in extinguishing life. His conscience becomes blunted. In a crisis situation, how large then is the step from killing an animal to killing a person? The Russian author Leo Tolstoy once said: “It is only a step from murdering animals to murdering people, and thus also from torturing animals to torturing people.”

“Unnatural Disasters”

According to a study by the Worldwatch Institute, the devastating results of natural disasters can be traced back more and more to human intervention in nature. The damages have grown dramatically. (German Press Agency 19.10.01) During the 1990s more than 2 million people were affected by natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and fires, which brought damages of 1316 billion DM (US $650 billion) – a sum is greater than that of the total damages during the previous 4 decades. In a study entitled “Unnatural Disaster,” the highly respected environmental institute writes: “By cutting down forests, diverting rivers, drying out swamps and destabilizing the climate, we are dissolving a complex ecological security network … we have dramatically changed so many natural systems that their capacity to protect us from turbulences is strongly limited.” While during the 1950s there were 20 big natural disasters per year, that made outside help necessary, in the 70s the number had risen to 47 and in the 90s all the way to 86. 96 per cent of the 560,000 people who died between 1985 and 1999 came from underdeveloped countries. Considering the rising level of the oceans, especially problematical is the fact that a third of the world population lives closer than 100 kilometers from the coast. 13 of the 19 megalopolises with more than 10 million inhabitants lie near the coast.

A few years ago, one still said: There have always been natural disasters; we just have to live with them. Now it is ever clearer that it is man who is driving the number of disasters higher and higher, who, with his behavior, himself ultimately represents a “disaster” for the planet Earth.

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