Bern: More Female Deer Approved for Shooting

The Hunting Inspectorate of the canton of Bern has completed its hunting plan for the 2024/2025 hunting season

This year, hobby hunters in the canton of Bern are permitted to shoot 1,076 red deer (2023: 1,077). The focus is on female deer, with 730 animals approved for culling (2023: 547).

Despite an increased cull last year and a tendency toward a stable population over the past three years, population regulation in some wildlife zones has so far been insufficient, the canton states. The proportion of female animals is particularly decisive for regulating the population.

The stated goal is to reduce the negative impact of regionally excessive red deer populations on Bernese forests and agriculture. Deer influence tree regeneration by browsing buds and shoots and stripping bark from trees — behaviour that occurs precisely because hunting pressure drives them into these areas.

The current form of hunting serves primarily to enforce economic interests by means of firearms. Through the actions of hobby hunters, wild animals are first driven into the forests, only to then be labelled as pests. Hobby hunters are the instruments of misguided ideologies.

It is the hobby hunters who make wildlife shy and skittish. They subject wild animals to a permanent state of war and siege. Roe deer and red deer are not originally forest animals — they are naturally diurnal creatures of open landscapes and forest edges. It is solely because of hobby hunters that they hide in the forest during the day.

The biomass of wild animals is completely out of balance with that of livestock. Too much of the habitat belonging to wild animals is occupied by livestock.

Additionally, according to the Canton of Bern, a regulation of the red deer population in the Federal Hunting Reserve Schwarzhorn is planned, for the first time involving recreational hunters.