Mail.comGROSSPRIEL, Austria (AP) — In Austria, hunting game such as deer and wild boar is a hallowed way of life, one that follows age-old codes of honor and requires a license bestowed only after passing rigorous exams. In that exalted world, Alois Huber was a brazen outlaw even before he went on a murderous rampage that left four people dead.
Not only did he poach game illegally in the middle of the night, he violated one of hunting’s most sacred rules: Kill for meat, not just the trophy of the wild animal’s head. Huber shot countless deer in the forests outside Vienna, sawed off their antlered heads to mount at home — and left their decapitated bodies to rot in the underbrush.
Until this week. Police had gotten wind of Huber’s nocturnal poaching and went to confront him in the early hours of Wednesday. Enraged, Huber’s illegal hunting turned to murder: He embarked on a shooting rampage that left three officers and a paramedic dead. Then he set his farmhouse bunker full of trophies on fire, and killed himself with a gunshot to the head. It was one of the worst multiple slayings in Austria’s postwar history.
Villagers are baffled by the shocking violence — and say Huber led a double life. They describe the trucker as an upstanding neighbor, a welcome guest at birthday parties who gladly helped out when asked for a favor.
“He was a quiet, pleasant person who never did anyone any harm,” said Adelheid Wieder, just hours after Huber’s charred body was found. “Nobody imagined that he could be so without scruples and so aggressive.”
But Huber had good reason to keep his passion a secret: Poaching is severely punished in this tightly regulated country where it can draw up to three years in prison. Hunters are licensed only after passing exams that test their knowledge of weapons, ballistics, hunting traditions, different kinds of game and their diseases — and a host of other disciplines. Police followed up on more than 300 reported hunting violations last year.
Among licensed hunters, rogues are held in the highest contempt. Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck says that police moved in on Huber after monitoring phone calls in which he acknowledged being the illegal trophy hunter being sought in the vicinity of Annaberg, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of Vienna. Additionally, said Grundboeck, a search of his farm on the outskirts of the village of Grosspriel turned up hundreds of deer antlers and other game trophies — and about 100 guns, “many taken from other hunters’ huts.”
“We have no doubt that we found our man,” he told The Associated Press. State Prosecutor Michaela Schnell says Huber is suspected in the illegal killing of numerous stags since 2005 and is also thought to have been the masked man who attacked a hunter with a knife two years ago, in what investigators now consider attempted murder.
In past centuries, poachers in Austria were often seen as cunning Robin Hood-like figures outwitting the noble owners of lands that they illegally hunted on for food. Now, says expert Roland Girtler, some “drive in the night with SUVs in the forest, blind the game so that it stands still and then shoot. That is pathetic.”
No one in Grosspriel or the cluster of surrounding hamlets about 70 kilometers (40 miles) west of Vienna suggests that Huber used such methods. They describe the 55-year-old as an expert who hunted legally and whose hobby turned into an obsession after his wife died about 15 years ago, leaving the childless widower with no close family. Those willing to talk about him after the trauma left by his rampage still don’t believe that he was the man leaving the headless carcasses of deer in his wake.
“We often went hunting for rabbits and pheasant,” says innkeeper Martin Jaeger between bites of schnitzel and gulps of cloudy wheat beer. “There was never any talk of poaching.” For experts, analyzing Huber’s motives without knowing him is difficult. Speculation runs freely. But psychiatrist Reinhard Haller says his rampage could have been linked in part to a romantic view of himself as a poacher of old on the run from repressive authorities.
From the start of his illicit hunts to his standoff with police, it was a “struggle to see who is better,” he told the Austria Press Agency, describing Huber’s suicide as “an expression of his determination not to accept defeat.”
Some of Huber’s last words as police closed in support that image of a defiant outlaw proud of his illegal shoots. “I am the poacher of Annaberg,” he told his friend, Herbert Huthansl, by cellphone, in comments cited by the daily Kronen Zeitung.
“They’re not going to get me.”
Yea, those trophy hunters that go shoot a trophy deer, elk, bear or whetever just for the wall mount deserves to have his pos head right there on the wall with the others he killed for the wall mount – yea they make my blood boil. I see no problem with poachers if they poach a animal for food, but to shoot a animal just for the mount is wrong. The least that a trophy hunter should do is take his damned precious trophy mount and then take the animal carcass and have it butchered and donate the meat to a food bank or some charity to have it donated to the poor that would appreciate it. Yea, these trophy hunters that leave the carcass to rot make me sick and IMOO are some of the lowest of the low and we all know who the lowest of the low are.
Yep Digger,
When young, was taught you never point a gun at anything unless you intend to kill it.
Make sure you have a good shot.
Make it a quick clean kill and if you failed at your shot (QCK), you better damn well track it down!
Only shoot what you need to eat and make use of everything.
Along with many other ethics……..
“Trophy hunters” were considered the lowest of the lowest, “ba$tards” I believe was the word my Grandpa used.
Yes RT, and those are good words to live by too. It seems to me that those trophy hunters are on some power/ego trip and have never went hungry or they always had more than they needed and they do not know what it is like to go without.
Ya know Digger, when my Grandpa was talking, tho he didn’t come out and say it. I got the impression those trophy hunters were fair game back in those day hehe!
Maybe that’s why they started those “hunting” resorts (You know the ones with hundreds of acres that were populated with wildlife & fenced in) for the rich and/or famous…for their safety? 🙂
Ya , I know RT, I have seen some stuff where they can shoot exotic animals in real time through the internet. Yea, I seen some damned advertisement last year about a game farm in Texas that had the cross hairs so you could aim it on a living animal and from the comfort and safety of you own home from any where in the world and you can shoot your muched needed trophy. Pretty bad isn`t it RT.
That is bad.
I haven’t seen that!?!
Are you bs’n me ?
So, what do they do after you shoot it? Box up the head and send it to ya 🙁
That really would be pretty disgusting, and what sort of weirdo would actually think they were a hunter?
Virtual hunter of the year! ………:(
Remember the ol’ Duck Hunt Atari game? lol!
Oh Yes RT.I will try to find some articles on that and send them to you…. Yes I guess they do mount the head and send it or ya can pick it up.
I was going to send you these links RT, but just so people don`t think that I`m totally nuts and off my rocker here is two links about that internet hunting I was telling you about RT, hope ya………..www.humansociety.org/issues/ captive_hunt/ captive_hunt_fact_sheet.html ….And here is on more http://www.humanesociety.org/ issues/ Internet/ facts/ Internet_hunting_fact_sheet html
I think you are right
Unreal……………..
Just………….unF’nreal………..
Yeah, do send ’em if ya can find them 🙂
I’ll do some checking too.
I can say my son got an 8pt last year!
The real way 🙂
I checked the site(s) went through most of the vids on the one and the other only had ads on it, that might show up different in your area. Oh well TY for trying, I’ll probably find it eventually 🙂
Gotta go & take care of some things around here. Might be back later and will write ya back later too 🙂
Actually RT I checked and clicked on that link and I got advertisements that I didn`t get when I posted that link. Any way when I clicked on that second link I did find it when I went to the top of the page and where it says “search” I typed in “internet hunting ” and they did come up. I guess they make it hard to find stuff like that 🙁 but it is there if you type in that internet hunting on that search box at the top of that page. PS I`m no humane society freak but I do find some interesting stuff their 🙂 . We will talk soon and will wait to hear from ya RT 🙂
If the above picture is of his arsenal, then he had quite an impressive armory, even by USSA standards. I have hunted deer with a rifle, then deer, elk & moose with a bow. I do not anymore, yet I have the skill. There have been many times where I have drawn on a target, yet have not shot, for lack of being absolutely certain of a clean drop. While I have harvested some impressive specimens, trophy hunters, those that take the antlers/head only and do not properly utilize the meat are unethical.
MOLON LABE