Because of photos on Instagram: How a hunter became a hunted

When the men come for the first time, the last snow of winter has just melted. They walk down the avenue to the courtyard, past the empty kennel, the light of their flashlight sparsely illuminating the path. Sinah Marie Böttcher is sleeping.

In the past few days she had felt how aggressive strangers can be. Again and again she read it on Instagram: She, Sinah Marie, should be raped and killed, stood there. She was to be eviscerated, her throat cut. It was not a shitstorm anymore, it sounded like a lynch mob.

And then they are really there.

Shortly before the men reach the house, the dog hits the hallway. Sinah Marie starts, wants to go to the door. There she sees through a window how the group roams the garden. She opens a window and screams. Short, the men stop. Then they run and disappear in the moor behind the property.

They will come back, so Sinah Marie is sure.

Sinah Marie Böttcher is 25 years old, homeowner, student in Hamburg, dog lover and huntress. The latter has brought her the trouble.

Hunting test with 22

Sinah Marie grew up in the countryside in Oldenburg, her grandmother ran a farm in Kappeln an der Schlei, an idyllic strip in Schleswig-Holstein. Even as a five-year-old, Sinah Marie pulled feathers out of slaughtered geese, collected cranberries, and cooked them.

As a teenager, she joined the rural youth. She met young hunters, accompanied them. Soon a large part of her circle of friends consisted of hunters, and she decided to make the hunting license herself. At age 22, she passed the exam - and not just earned permission to shoot. Her view of nature has completely changed as a result of the hobby, she says.

Sinah Marie is able to assign 30 different eggs of the appropriate bird species, dozens of trees and shrubs. She can foresee on which sections of a country road she has to drive more slowly because deer or wild boars could run over the road.

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4 pictures

Four months after the exam, Sinah Marie killed for the first time. She killed a few days old fawn, whose mother had died in a car accident. After the shot she cried. "That was not easy for me, but I'm convinced it was necessary."

In the beginning, Sinah Marie struggled to get recognized in the local hunting community. It has no territory, other hunters they rarely took on a hunt. Therefore, she searched the net, created accounts on Facebook and Instagram - and found so connection. Soon she wrote more people than she could meet for hunting.

Picture by picture on Instagram

She likes to document her foray into the forest in the net. As @Waidfraeulein she posts picture after picture on her Instagram channel; of hunting, of their dogs, of killed game. Next to it are phrases like "Actually I was looking for my beloved sows ... but a middle-aged stag on 5 meters does it" and "I'm soooo grateful that God has given me such a perfect situation" - garnished with hearts in pink. More than 10,000 followers read regularly.

Hunting does not necessarily have the best image. For many, it symbolizes a hobby of old men who feel strong and powerful when they kill animals. Sinah Marie wants to change that. It makes them angry how contemptuously talked about hunters, she says. "Over 90 percent of Germans eat meat."

Fight against the double standards

She herself consumes only animals that she has personally killed - an internship in a pig farm has encouraged her in this decision. She dropped out of agricultural science and switched to business administration. A Waidfraeulein in the fight against the double standards of our meat society, so she sees herself. Until it tips.

On March 4, this year, Sinah Marie posts another photo. The motive: The young woman kneels in hunting gear behind a dead fox. Her dog Anton cuddles in the crook of his arm and Sinah Marie holds her rifle in her hand. She writes: "The old lout probably thought he could get my peacocks. She is proud of the majestic birds she keeps on her property.

Sinah Marie with rifle: "A deer does it too"

When she looks at her mobile phone the next day, strangers have left bad comments. She is a disgusting person, for example. Five are. Sinah Marie decides to erase her.

But then it really starts: a few hours later, thousands of other comments are under the picture. Animal rights activists have shared the post on the net. The digital lynch mob is forming. Kill. Rape. Eviscerate. "I was scared," says Sinah Marie. "Many of them were fathers, they had daughters who were not much younger than I. Why do they write something like that?"

At first she tries to discuss with the commentators. But it does not help. A little later, strangers find out the mobile numbers of their sister and mother and publish them. Then the men appear on the property where Sinah Marie lives with her boyfriend. The hatred left the net and he tracked down Sinah Marie at home.

"Clear threat"

The next evening the men come back. They ring and disappear, ring and disappear. The young woman calls the police. But her house is located in a valley, a few miles outside the village of Malente, where the nearest guard is. When the police arrive, the men are gone again. You record Sinah Marie's ad. Then go. A little later, the men shine with flashlights in the bedroom. "That was a clear threat," says Sinah Marie. "They wanted to show me: We are still here."

The men are coming almost every night now. Her boyfriend works a lot and is often on the road overnight. But his presence does not deter visitors. One day Sinah Marie opens the door, her dog by the collar. One of the men stands in the darkness of the yard, looks at her silently. Then he disappears.

Sinah Marie sleeps and learns and telephones these days on one of her high seats at the edge of the forest. Her house, she says, was a war zone for her. She usually sleeps during the day when the men can not hide in the dark.

One night, they send a picture to Snapchat: a piece of meat peppered with pills that someone holds in front of the dog kennels on Sinah Marie's property.

She is a strong woman, says the 25-year-old. They hunt and dissect the animals themselves, spend many hours alone on the high seat. But she was really scared these weeks. She has a video camera installed, brings in more headlights in the yard. But it does not help. The men keep coming. Shortly thereafter, the high seat of a neighbor is destroyed. Sinah Marie assumes that the attack was her.

Bad dream

But just as the visits began, they eventually settle down, become less. And finally stop altogether. Like a storm. Like a bad dream.

Sinah Marie has insulted those who attacked her on Facebook. "I want to make it clear that this is not possible," she says. "I am for criticism and argument, but I will not be insulted." The photo with the dead fox did not erase her. She does not want to retreat an inch, she says. And she hopes to meet at least one of her torturers one day.

Then she says, she wants to ask him what he does for nature. Does he also get up at three in the morning five times a week to free wounded deer from wires? Can he also wake up at night to give the gracious shot of an animal injured in a car accident? And what did he actually want to achieve with the threats? What was the goal? Can he understand what he did to her?

Every time she rings the doorbell today, Sinah Marie Böttcher feels: fear.