FOEN Derails on Nature Conservation
Joint press release by Pro Natura, WWF Switzerland, Group Wolf Switzerland, BirdLife Switzerland
New Hunting Ordinance through the back door
In a democratically questionable move, the Federal Office for the Environment FOEN intends to bring a new hunting ordinance into force through the back door.
Quota culls are intended to lead to the extermination of the wolf in large parts of Switzerland. The will of parliament and the people to implement a balanced hunting and protection act is being disregarded.
Massive decimation of the wolf population feared
The FOEN remained inactive for months since autumn 2022 regarding the proper implementation of the Hunting Act at the ordinance level. At short notice, the shooting of a protected species according to quotas is now to be pushed through on an expedited basis. At the same time, the FOEN is weakening the proven livestock protection through budget cuts. The FOEN intends to reduce the wolf population from around 30 to 12 packs.
The will of the people must be respected
In the interest of nature, the credibility of parliamentary decisions, and in accordance with the popular will expressed in the HGA referendum, the organisations are demanding the complete withdrawal of the draft ordinance. The intention to shoot all packs above this threshold, without any reference to an imminent threat of damage, has nothing to do with the originally adopted HGA revision.
Petition against proactive wolf regulation
Dossier: Wolf in Switzerland: Facts, politics and the limits of hunting
More on the subject of recreational hunting: What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
