Acquitted: It wasn't the wolf

A year after our first article on sheep mortality in Switzerland, the latest figures paint an even clearer picture: the wolf remains the smallest of all threats to the Swiss sheep population – while at the same time more wolf packs than ever before are roaming through Switzerland.

The 2025 figures: a decline for the first time – but at a high level

According to the raw data of the animal movement database of Identitas AG, the following numbers of sheep died in Switzerland:

• 2020: 29’740 sheep
• 2021: 40’236 sheep
• 2022: 48’309 sheep
• 2023: 48’659 sheep
• 2024: 59’841 sheep
• 2025: 52’408 sheep (−12.4 % compared to 2024)
• 2026 (January to July): already 24’870 sheep

The long-standing upward trend thus did not continue for the first time in 2025. Nevertheless, the figure remains well above the level of 2022/2023. The sheep population itself stood at 438’055 registered animals at the end of July 2025.

(Note on methodology: the analysis used here from August 2026 differs slightly from the 2024 figure that circulated in the media at the start of 2025, 56’838 animals. The Identitas database is continuously updated retroactively as reports arrive later; the current analysis is therefore more complete accordingly.)

Why the figure fell in 2025 and why this is no all-clear

Bluetongue disease: a second wave rather than an all-clear

Bluetongue disease (BTV-8 and BTV-3), which has been rampant in Switzerland since the end of August 2024, remains a central factor. Up to the vector-free winter period of 2024/2025, almost 2’000 disease reports were received for cattle and sheep. After the seasonal decline over the winter, the cantonal veterinary offices reported significantly more cases again from the end of August 2025 – among others in eastern Switzerland, where mainly BTV-3 is currently circulating. In spring 2026, too, vets describe the issue as still «burning».

The Swiss Sheep Breeding Association (SSZV) recorded a decline in reported lamb births from around 30,000 (January 2025) to around 28,000 (January 2026) and is discussing bluetongue disease as a possible cause – via less successful pregnancies. Direct proof of causation is still pending.

Drought 2026: cattle first, sheep to follow

The exceptionally dry summer of 2026 caused water shortages on the alpine pastures across large parts of Switzerland. The reporting on this has so far concerned almost exclusively cattle: in the cantons of Jura, Grisons, Schwyz, Uri, Nidwalden and Obwalden, cattle herds already had to be brought down from the alps early, in some cases supplied by water transports via lorry or helicopter, or slaughtered out of necessity.

The reason sheep are virtually absent from this reporting is banal: a cow drinks up to 100 litres of water daily, a sheep many times less and copes considerably better with sparse, dry pastures. This does not mean that sheep were spared – the slight rise in sheep slaughtering in early summer 2026 (see below) coincides in time with the drought – but merely that cattle provide the more dramatic images.

The slaughter bench

Identitas’s mortality statistics record only animals that die from illness, neglect or accidents. They say nothing about the largest part of sheep deaths in Switzerland: the planned, industrially organised slaughter.

According to Proviande, the following were slaughtered:

• 2024: 231,615 sheep
• 2025: 213,517 sheep
• January–May 2026: 91,381 sheep (+2.4 % compared with the same period the previous year; in May 2026 alone +12.4 % compared with May 2025)

Taken together, this means: in 2025 over 265,000 sheep through death or slaughter – more than 60% of the entire registered population in a single year. Slaughter is neither an accident nor a side effect of inadequate husbandry, but the actual purpose of sheep farming as an agricultural sector. Anyone asking about the «true culprits» in sheep deaths must factor in this circumstance: a large proportion of Swiss sheep are destined for the slaughterhouse from the outset, regardless of wolf, disease or weather.

Record wolf population, collapsed kill figures – two facts, one conclusion

While one half of the sheep-death statistics must be explained by disease, market and climate, the other half – the wolf kills themselves – paints an even clearer picture.

The population is at record level. After the third regulation period (1 September 2025 to 31 January 2026), the FOEN counted 30 packs living entirely in Switzerland as well as 10 cross-border packs – 40 in total, more than ever before (previous year: 36). The Kora Foundation, in its annual report (monitoring year February 2025 to January 2026), arrives at 43 packs and likewise estimates the total population at around 350 animals. Despite the regulation – 77 to 89 wolves killed depending on source and period – the number of packs continued to grow, slowed but not stopped.

At the same time, kill figures have collapsed – where herd protection takes effect. Pro Natura’s provisional 2025 kill balance for the canton of Valais shows the difference in black and white: of 316 livestock animals killed by wolves up to the end of October, 209 were unprotected – only 107 despite herd protection measures. Among protected animals, around 40 fewer were killed there than in the previous year; among unprotected animals, by contrast, the number rose by over 30. The Gruppe Wolf Schweiz confirms the trend nationwide: in most cantons with wolf packs, the kill figures are less than half the previous year’s value, particularly markedly in Grisons and Vaud, and in Valais at the lowest level for at least six years.

Not all experts agree on what is driving the decline – but a look at the time series speaks a clear language. After the record year of 2022 (around 1’800 kills, at that time only 19 packs), the number already fell 2023 to around 850 cases, a decline of 29% within a single year. However, proactive regulation – that is, kills already before damage occurs – only came into force on 1 December 2023 into force in the last month of that year and can therefore hardly have caused the decline over the course of 2023. Moreover, the wolf population continued to grow at that point (25 Swiss packs at the end of 2023, compared with 19 the previous year) – more wolves and, at the same time, considerably fewer kills. What does coincide chronologically, however, is the expansion of herd protection funding from 2022 onwards. The BAFU itself concedes in its own report that the «kink» in the trend is explained «on the one hand» by the (earlier, lower) damage-threshold regulation and «on the other hand» by strengthened herd protection – with the chronological sequence pointing to the latter. The analysis by the company Pro Valladas (published in the NZZ, Marcel Züger), which attributes the decline primarily to targeted regulation and points to Austrian Carinthia, ignores this chronology.

What the Pro Natura figures demonstrate, however, regardless of this debate: the decisive difference does not run between «many wolves» and «few wolves», but between protected and unprotected. The Gruppe Wolf Schweiz also works this out: in regions with long-standing wolf presence and established herd protection measures, coexistence is largely free of conflict, whereas newly settled areas with weak or absent herd protection record the highest kill rates.

A shift of responsibility

The facts of 2025/2026 confirm and sharpen the finding of our first article: the wolf is to blame for less than 2 % of all sheep that die, and even this small share is disproportionately concentrated on unprotected animals, while protected herds are affected ever more rarely despite a record population. The time series also shows: the major decline in kill figures took place before proactive regulation began, and while the population continued to grow – herd protection, not the kill, makes the difference. At the same time, a look beyond the mortality statistics shows: disease (bluetongue disease), climate (the 2026 drought) and, above all, regular slaughter shape the fate of far more Swiss sheep than any predator. The political debate, which revolves almost exclusively around the wolf, thus systematically misses where the real causes lie.

More on this: Sheep deaths: the real culprits are in the barn (original article) · Val Fex: when the herd protection concept has more holes than the fence · Dossier Regulate hobby hunters, not the predators · Dossier What hobby hunting really costs Switzerland