A Swiss animal rights group has requested that a local guild of fishermen stop throwing fish carcasses into the street during its annual spring festival, The Local reported.
Every year at the Sechselauten festival, fishermen draped in traditional costumes march through the streets of Zurich throwing dead fish up at windows and balconies as they pass by. The fish, which then land on top of bystanders, are mostly species not consumed by humans and turned into food for other fish.
Nevertheless, the Zurich Association for the Protection of Animals considers the practice grotesque and has called upon the city’s 25 fishermen guilds to end the 100-year-old tradition.
Instead of chucking dead fish into the air, the guild should find “an irreproachable ethical replacement,” the group wrote Wednesday in an open letter, according to The Local.
Zurich city officials should be ashamed for letting “the throwing of corpses” continue, the letter reads.
The Sechselauten festival, which takes place on the third Monday in April, is a celebration marking the end of winter and the arrival of spring. After a parade of music and fish throwing, spectators gather in front of a massive snowman named the Boogg, which is set on fire to symbolize the end of winter.
The animal rights group demanded city officials ban the practice by 2015. Swiss authorities said they are considering the request, according to The Local.
Sechselauten is not the only celebration that involves fish-tossing. Every year brawny fishermen gather in the town of Port Lincoln, South Australia for the annual tuna tossing contest. But in 2007 the contest organizers switched from using real tuna to plastic replicas because tossing real ones go to be too messy.
2014 Hngn