What happend in Karlsruhe?

The happenings that occurred at this years Europa show, between the benching and judging of my birds, has caused bad feelings up to disbelieve to myself and many fanciers. This incident has cause sharp discussions and differences and by now there are several versions of what happened and what has been made out to have happened. It is my desire, with this report, to show objectively what has happened to my birds. With this article I want to publicly describe what has happened, so if not through the AZ-DWV, then it has to come from me. This incident was directed at me, as a breeder and exhibitor, and was also an infringement of animal rights.
It is not my aim to falsely accuse individuals or groups as offenders or to imply inappropriate behaviour. I would like to accuse the "Unknown", describe the incident itself and the handling of the situation by the shows management.

On Friday evening the 24th of August, together with Kurt Vogt, I delivered my birds at 7pm to the Europa Shows venue in Karlsruhe. Hubers Jansen personally received my exhibition birds in the presence of Rolf Schindelmeier. At that time I discussed my grey spangle cock with them who in my opinions was by far the best bird in my show team.

Pictures by Timo Harr - Thank you very much!

At this point in time my birds where completely feathered as was confirmed by Hubert Jansen. Ralph Jenne also saw my birds as I had to perform some final adjustments like pulling spots . Kurt Vogt also saw 2 of the affected birds just before the handover.
On the following Saturday(25th August) the judging day I got at home several comments on the placement of my birds from fellow fanciers. To my surprise none of my favourites was amongst the winning birds.

The following day on Sunday the 26th I arrived at the venue around midday. Several fanciers congratulated me on my birds performance on the way to the hall and mentioned to my surprise that I obviously had exhibited many birds with missing tails. I rushed into the hall and to my show cages to to make sense of these reports.
In the presence of Erich Schank I discovered to my horror that apart from 3 small feathers all the tail feathers of the grey spangle cock had been removed. None of the feathers was inside the cage which is physically impossible. On the advise of Marcel Buehler I immediately rushed with the bird and show cage to the show management who decided to remove the bird from the exhibition.
Rolf Schindelmeiser, the official AZ-DWZ chairman, confirmed right away the the bird was completely feathered at the booking in on Friday evening and that therefore someone must have deliberately plucked those feathers. Without prompting he said that he had a suspicions on who was responsible and that he would take steps to insure that this "Gangster" would face the consequences of his action. As this incident had to have had occurred between Friday evening (7.30pm) and Saturday morning (6.30am) there was only a limited number of suspects in his opinion. It seems obvious that only someone from his close team of helpers could be responsible. Rolf Schindelmeiser remarked this in the presence of Hubert Jansen and Erich Schrank. Marcel Buehler and Andreas Conrades also witnessed a large part of this conversation
After this conversation I went to inspect the rest of my show team and to my dismay I found the several more of my birds had been targeted.
These were
- My cinnamon hens in grey green and grey in the pairs
- My young cinnamon grey cock who 2 weeks previous won the Zewa show
- My 2 best hens, a cinnamon light green and a cinnamon grey

With another of my birds as well as a hen of my 4 bird team a tail feather was to be found within the show cage which would point to a natural loss of the feather With the cinnamon grey green hen the tail was quite obviously cut with a pair of scissors.

After the first shock I asked myself the following important questions:
Why would someone systematically, with bad intend and glee, sabotage my decades of work as a breeder?

What is even stranger is the behaviour of the AZ _DWV which despite the reassurances of Rolf Schindelmeiser has decided to distance themselves from this matter and to brush it under the carpet. There is not conclusive proof and also the culprit is missing, everything is build on suspicions which is why they do not want to report the incedent. It is important to preserve the good reputation of the Champion show and to protect the members of the AZ/DWV as Rolf Schindelmeiser informs me via email.

I am aware that the chance of exposing and dealing with the culprit or culprits are slim. But this is not my primary aim now.
It is my opinion that the Society and the organisation committee has a responsibility of reporting such unsporting behaviour, they have to adopt a clear position, they then have to protect the exhibitor and exhibits and to make sure that such a things are not possible again in the future.

What could happen next? In our wonderful hobby, on which so many spend so much time and heart blood, no persons acting like criminals should have any place. Respect for the achievements and work of other breeders should be self evident.

I would like to point out that I do not want to tarnish the reputation of the Euro championship which I find an important asset to our hobby. I simply want to insure that the organisers do everything possible to avoid such an incident in the future. If everyone is aware of these happenings then the culprits will find it much harder to act.
I would also like to point out that during a very short time the AZ/DWV chairman Rolf Schindelmeiser has done a lot of good work to insure the Championship is conducted in a fairer manner. He authorised a majority of foreign judges. He also, for the first time this year, ensured covered listings/labels so the judge would not know the name of the exhibitor.

In my opinions the AZ should have reported events as they occurred. It is in their interest that future Europa shows are as fair, correct, save and trustworthy as possible. Because of these unpleasant incidents it is important that things are done differently in the future. It is not right that this is made to look unimportant
.
It is not my wish to add fuel to false accusations, I just want to ensure that the circumstances are officially reported and that a apology from the organisers is fore coming or at least that they acknowledge and regret the whole sad incident.

Würenlos, 18th of Oktober 2012
Daniel Lütolf