The tinkle of cow bells within the distance is likely one of the most immediately recognisable sounds of the Alps however they might quickly be a faint reminiscence in Allgäu.
Now, animal rights activists in are calling for the normal bells worn by cows to be banned, saying that they’re too heavy and injury the cows’ listening to.
The German Animal Welfare Society needs the bells to get replaced with GPS.
Farmers let their herds graze freely within the excessive Alpine pastures, and use the bells to maintain monitor of them. Whereas the cowbells are extra typically related to Switzerland, the Allgau area of Bavaria has its personal distinctive variant.
The German Animal Welfare Society needs the bells to get replaced with GPS Photograph: Alamy
and at night time to stop them protecting the neighbours awake.
Nicole Brühl, president of the German Animal Welfare Society, informed Welt newspaper the group didn’t consider animals ought to endure for custom.
“We’re for a ban on cow bells once they demonstrably hurt the animals. We utterly reject the thought an animal ought to endure one thing so unreasonable for custom alone.”
The demand has been met with fury from the farmers and the native tourism authorities.
“That is full nonsense,” Franz Hage, chairman of the native Alpine Financial Assoication, stated. “It’s the custom in Allgäu.”
Cattle sporting the Bavarian cowbells in Allgäu Photograph: Alamy
“,” Simone Zehnpfennig, a spokesman for the native vacationer board, stated
The row in Germany follows comparable makes an attempt to get the cowbells banned by animal rights teams throughout the border in Switzerland.
Swiss activists measured the quantity of the bells final yr and located they emit 100 to 113 decibels – the identical as a chainsaw.
Up to now the Swiss authorities have rejected requires a ban, and the activists don’t look more likely to do any higher in fiercely conservative Bavaria.
“I don’t consider the bells are an obstacle for the cows, both for his or her weight or their quantity,” Helmut Brunner, the Bavarian state agriculture minister, informed Welt.