A New Queen for the Alpine Herd, Sausage Prices Expected to Plump for BBQ Season, Illegal Waste Disposal Plagues, Basel GalgenFischer recruited to repopulate Zoo

Organizers declared a cow named Frégate the victor at 9.30pm after a grueling tournament which ran to a record - late finish at the competition held in Aproz, the ATS new agency reported.

Around 12,000 spectators turned out on Sunday for the event, featuring specially bred black Hérens cows, who lock horns while carrying large bells around their necks.

The turnout fell short of the record crowd of 16,000 recorded at last year’s event, when the weather was more cooperative.

And this year, amidst spells of rain, the cows prolonged their fights to the point where the final was held in the near-dark after many onlookers had left.

Local fire fighters used a truck with a search light to illuminate the arena so people could watch Frégate successfully beat a younger cow, Castagne, ATS reported.

The heaviest and favorite cow in the competition, Babylon, reportedly did not want to fight, while last year’s winner, Cobra, was knocked out in an earlier round.

The competition at Aproz is the biggest event of several held in the canton of Valais in the spring.

Apart from the organized competitions, Hérens cows are noted for their naturally hierarchical nature.


The cows decide among themselves through impromptu springtime “fights” in the meadows who will be the “queen” to lead the herd up to the Alps.


The animals lock horns and push each other until one of them gives up. 

The Schweizer Fleisch-Fachverband (SFF), the Swiss meat producers’ association, this week put consumers on notice that sausage prices would be rising because of soaring costs for the producers.

The SFF said in a news release that consumers could expect a 15 percent average increase for pork products and 10 percent for other sausages and meats.

For the consumer this translates into a 15-rappen hike in the price of Switzerland’s most popular sausage, the pork cervelat, per 100 grams.

The SFF said that its members were being squeezed by livestock slaughtering costs that had risen substantially since 2012 while the retail price of sausage and other meats had remained largely unchanged.

The bill for butchering pigs, for example, had jumped by close to 30 percent, while slaughtering expenses for cattle increased by nine percent, the association said.

The higher costs had led to a “massive” reduction in the margins for both industrial meat producers and artisinal butchers, the SFF said.

According to the association, this reduction in profits was unsustainable.

It noted that prices had barely changed for sausages and other meats since 2010 and the livelihood of many butchers was being threatened.

The SFF indicated that consumers should be able to accommodate the higher prices, given that meat currently accounts for only two percent of average household budgets.

As if the news weren’t enough to cast gloom on barbecue lovers, the weather has also turned cool and rainy in much of the country, following a mild winter and warm start to spring.

MeteoSwiss, the national weather office, forecasts that sunny conditions are expected to return on Sunday.

In 2013, the Basel Office of Environment and Energy received 5300 reports of illegal dumping from witnessing civilians.  

Of those reports, there were 2000 confirmed cases of waste being illegally left at the side of roads.  

Despite, or perhaps in reaction to, Basel's strict trash and recyclable disposal rules people appear to find it easier and likely cheaper to simply dump their waste in or near municipal recycling stations.  

Hardest hit have been the neighborhoods of Gundeli and St. Johan, the center of the highest population density in the city.  

Particularly problematic, is when people have left electrical appliances at the side of the road, despite free scheduled pickup by town sanitation services, and that retailers are required to accept used electronics they sold for proper disposal.  

In reaction to this growing problem, the City council is contemplating the installation of video monitoring equipment around the areas most heavily impacted.

The seventy or so fishing huts, known as Galgenfischer in the local dialect, lining the banks of the Rhein in Basel have been enlisted to help repopulate the stocks of fish at the Basel Zoo.

At the entrance to the Basel zoo are aquarium tanks and ponds that are supposed to be representative of the flora and fauna of the Rhein in the local area.  However, some species have slowly dwindled, and zoo authorities have responded by turning to the fishing organization that represents the galgenfischer.

The fishermen that operate the huts are renowned for their traditional net and line fishing methods, which was one of the reasons that the environmentally sensitive zoo operators chose to enlist them to restock their fish.

Until about 80 years ago the fishermen and their huts were a vibrant part of the local food chain, bringing over 700 kilos of Salmon to market annually.  In extremely rare cases these days, Salmon have been known to be caught by fishing enthusiasts in Basel.