A special department of the Zurich cantonal police takes action against water polluters, animal abusers and sellers of contaminated food. But the biggest annoyance is the denunciation.
Emil Ott heads the special department for animal and environmental protection at the Zurich cantonal police.
The lights in the offices of the security police special department for animal and environmental protection of the Zurich cantonal police on Lessingstrasse go on very early every morning. As a farmer’s son, Emil Ott is used to getting up early. The down-to-earth head of the specialist service has always been connected to the animal world and appreciates working with and for nature. With his eight employees, he had a total of 160 animal welfare cases on the table last year.
In 1989, when the special division of the canton police was created, it was still called the Environmental Protection Service. Alongside Bern, Zurich was the first canton to set up such a specialist service to take action against animal and environmental offenders. The main trigger at the time was a case in Schweizerhalle near Basel. After a chemical accident, the Rhine had become devoid of flora and fauna in places.
After this serious incident had shaken many cantons awake, the Environmental Protection Act was introduced. With the animal welfare, animal epidemics, environmental protection and forest laws, there are now more than twenty laws, the content of which must be mastered by animal and environmentally friendly officials.
The cases mainly related to pets and farm animals, for example when pigs were kept in conditions “below all sows”. In the area of animal diseases, there were around 90 cases in 2020. Here, for example, it was about dogs that were unvaccinated and imported with forged pet passports. 45 notifications were received in the environmental protection and water sector. There were almost 70 cases in the pharmaceutical and food sector, and in the hunting and fishing sector, the special department of the cantonal police investigated around 40 reports in 2020.
Emil Ott, the head of this security police force, emphasizes that in the areas mentioned, a considerable number of other reports are being processed by the basic services of the canton police and by the various city and municipal police forces.
Mostly office cops
“Everyone does everything here,” says Ott, who has been working in this department for twenty years. He has also been a hunter for forty years and runs a small farm on the side. Whether with or without a technical background, every employee can acquire the necessary specialist knowledge over time.
The 58-year-old adjutant with special tasks cites his deputy Martin Sinniger as an example. He had to take care of poisoned falcons in the canton of Zurich again and again. Through various cases of pigeon breeders who laid out poisonous bait to protect their pigeons from the birds of prey, Sinniger had become a veritable ornithologist over the course of the intensive investigative work.
According to Sinniger, it has been known since 2011 that peregrine falcons are systematically poisoned. “It’s a species that almost went extinct forty years ago.” So far, the 57-year-old has been able to convict two pigeon breeders, who have now been legally sentenced.
The canton police officers for animal and environmental protection spend a large part of their working hours in the office. In addition to the often time-consuming investigative work, they support the frontline police as specialists in dealing with animal and environmental crimes.
If, for example, water pollution or an incident involving a pet is reported, normal patrols are deployed. “We then help them by explaining how they have to proceed with reporting or securing evidence, for example, because it often affects legislation that nobody really knows about,” says Ott. It is particularly difficult because many regulations change every year. “But we know inside out where to look.”
In 2020, the Zurich animal and environmental police officers answered over 600 written inquiries. Then there were countless telephone consultations. And the officials will not run out of work anytime soon. In recent years, it has almost become a hype in politics to bring up environmental protection issues in parliament. Sometimes that’s positive, but sometimes it’s also negative, says Ott, rolling his eyes.
The food cases that end up on the table at the specialist service can be complex. The specialist in this area is Marianne Thomson. Although most of the “perpetrators” are basically trying to offer good quality products, there are always grievances in the area of food safety, despite legal regulations.
For example, there are often reports of the import and sale of fish that are excessively contaminated with heavy metals. The accused often neglect self-control, but according to Thomson, they are usually willing to improve their processes in the future.
“The heavy metal problem is well known, particularly in the case of predatory fish such as tuna. This is due to the pollution of the seas », the former chemical laboratory assistant and current sergeant points out.
Marianne Thomson ensures food safety.
The notifications in the area of food safety usually come from the cantonal laboratory, which controls the establishments. They would then determine the criminal facts, explains the 50-year-old, who has worked in the specialist service of the Zurich cantonal police since 2014. Depending on the severity, all cases are judged either by the public prosecutor’s office or, in minor cases, by the governor’s office.
“Every now and then, decisions are not made the way we would like,” says Emil Ott. From Ott’s point of view, the reason for such wrong decisions is likely to be due to the complexity of animal welfare and environmental protection issues and, in part, to the lack of specialist knowledge. “But we have to live with that, that’s the strict separation of powers.”
“Often it just went silly”
The “clientele” against which the cantonal animal and environmental police initiate investigations are often righteous citizens. “Most of the time, it’s not the serious criminals we’re investigating,” says Sergeant Sinniger. According to Thomson, incriminating and exculpatory evidence is sought in each case. In some cases, one comes to the conclusion that things just went silly and that nobody could be blamed for negligent behavior and thus blame.
Guilty or not guilty, Ott argues that his department has an important resource to defend: “Nature has no one else to protect it.” Which is why he and his team simply had to “step on toes” for certain people.
The head of service also doesn’t take a joke when people are wrongly suspected. Unfounded ads have been coming up again and again for quite some time. “Denunciation has become fashionable.” For example, when the neighbor does not walk his dog properly or when complaints come in that cattle have no opportunity to drink in the pasture, although there is a tub with water somewhere behind a hill. That is often very tiring.
“So a Rottweiler that shows misbehavior must be handled differently by its owner than a Chihuahua.” This is then often mistakenly viewed as too crude. This happens almost excessively often these days. It’s just normal that you have to be a bit rough with certain dogs, says Ott.
Another thorn in the side of the head of the special department is the countless stories circulating on the Internet about poisoned dogs. This fueled false fears, so that every piece of meat lying around, no matter how normal, was reported to the police as an alleged attempt at poisoning. “But that’s 99 percent nothing!”
For example, a bird might drop a piece of meat, or a fox might have stolen something from a rubbish bag. Luckily, cases involving real poison baits are very rare.