Bavaria faces ban on otter hunting

This is a rather explosive case, because it touches on several levels at once: state law, federal law, European species protection law — and on top of that the practical question of how strictly protected animals can be effectively protected at all, when state rules make their killing easier.

Wild beim Wild editorial team — 15 August 2025

The German Environmental Aid (DUH), together with the Bund Naturschutz Bayern (BN), has filed an application for judicial review with the Bavarian Administrative Court to protect the otter.

The aim is to examine the legality of the Bavarian hunting ordinance, which extensively permits the capture and killing of the strictly protected otter.

After the DUH won an urgent proceeding on 30 June 2025 against one of the species protection general orders on the killing of the otter in Upper Franconia, this judicial review provides for a judicial examination of the amendments to the hunting law exemption ordinance (GVBl. 2024, p. 397).

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Under the current regulation, driven forward by Deputy Minister-President Hubert Aiwanger, the capture and killing of the strictly protected otter at fish ponds is permitted all year round — and in a particularly brutal manner during the hunt. Even young animals may be shot by hobby hunters, and adult animals may be caught in box traps despite the considerable risk of injury, with the males being killed after a weighing procedure. In addition, Bavaria permits so-called night-vision technology and artificial light sources as well as the use of non-selective traps for otter hunting.

The Bavarian regulations violate the fisher otter's protected status in numerous SPA sites and breach European species protection law. With the night vision devices prohibited here under European law, it cannot be reliably detected whether the animal is a female with dependent young. This violates, among other things, parental animal protection! Live traps, in turn, fail to meet the requirements regarding selection and physical integrity in the case of the fisher otter. Bavaria must finally protect endangered and strictly protected species such as the fisher otter – and this can only be achieved with a hunting law that is oriented towards nature conservation. – Sascha Müller-Kraenner, Federal Managing Director of the DUH

The application for judicial review of legal norms is bolstered by the DUH's most recent success before the Bayreuth Administrative Court: after the authority in Upper Franconia initially refused, the DUH this week secured the withdrawal of the last two removal permits. This means that during the ongoing proceedings against the general order in the district of Upper Franconia, not a single fisher otter may be killed any more.

A judicial review of legal norms examines not a single permit, but the validity of the entire ordinance. If the DUH and BN win, the contested hunting regulation would fall for the whole of Bavaria, not only for individual cases.

Background:

With the exemption ordinances under species protection and hunting law, the Bavarian state government has for years been attempting to override European species protection law. The killings and captures now permitted, according to the assessment of the DUH and BN, jeopardise the stabilisation of the formerly almost exterminated fisher otter population in Bavaria.

Court halts the fisher otter hunt throughout Bavaria

The application for judicial review had an effect: in March 2026, the Bavarian Higher Administrative Court (VGH) granted an urgent application by Deutsche Umwelthilfe and Bund Naturschutz Bayern and provisionally suspended the contested provisions of the hunting ordinance. Since then, otters may no longer be caught or killed anywhere in Bavaria using live-capture traps, night vision technology or artificial light sources – with this ruling, the court confirmed the position of DUH and BN that the Bavarian regulations violate European species protection law. Criticism came promptly from the political sphere: Bavaria's Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger accused the environmental associations of an «obstruction tactic» that harms nature conservation. The main proceedings for the final clarification of the legal situation are ongoing. Agriculture Minister Michaela Kaniber, meanwhile, continues to demand a swift removal in the regions of pond farming that are heavily affected.