Bow-hunting panel in Utzenstorf: four from their own camp, one critic

On Sunday, 19 July 2026, the Schloss Landshut support association invites the public to the «Landshut Dialogue on Wildlife and Hunting» in Utzenstorf.

Topic: «Bow hunting in Switzerland, possible and necessary?» The event is public, free of charge, with simultaneous translation. What is announced as an open-ended debate is the public stage of a project that has been running for over a year.

The chronology

At the 2025 presidents' meeting of JagdSchweiz, Nicolas Wallimann introduced the topic of bow hunting. The basis was a motion from the canton of Jura. The meeting instructed the umbrella association to examine the interest in and acceptance of this form of hunting. JagdSchweiz then sent out a questionnaire via the cantonal associations. The Fribourg hunting association published it on 30 April 2025, with a submission deadline of 15 June 2025. JagdSchweiz stated that it was surveying «the attitude of hunters towards bow hunting».

The president of JagdSchweiz at the time was Anton Merkle. That same Anton Merkle now sits on the panel in Utzenstorf.

Wallimann is president of the Jura cantonal hunting association. Back in October 2023, he had told the regional broadcaster RFJ that coexistence with the wolf was not possible in Jura. Two motions from the same canton and from the same source, one against the wolf, one in favour of bow hunting, can be placed within one and the same thrust: more population control through more killing options. We have reported on this: Canton of Jura: hunting president against the wolf

The missing result

More than a year after the deadline, no result has been published (as of 14 July 2026, checked on jagdschweiz.ch and with the cantonal associations). How high was the response rate? How did acceptance turn out? And why does a survey conducted on behalf of the presidents' assembly remain under wraps?

The comparison is telling. Surveys that benefit the association are rolled out by JagdSchweiz with graphics and a press release. The «Jagdbarometer» appears every two years with the full PR apparatus. The bow hunting survey disappeared from public communication after the submission deadline.

We assessed it in July 2025: Bow hunting in Switzerland must be rejected in the clearest terms

A panel without counterweight

Officially, according to the announcement, the event begins at 2 p.m. with a specialist lecture and panel discussion. The detailed programme, however, already lists a presentation of bow hunting equipment from 11 a.m., including a shooting demonstration with Melitta Maradi and Adrian Eusebio, followed by a film about bow hunting at 12.30 p.m. Both are public and free of charge. At 2 p.m., Melitta Maradi delivers the specialist lecture «Bow Hunting». Only from 2.30 p.m. is there any «discussion».

On the panel: Anton Merkle, former president of JagdSchweiz. Adrian Eusebio, president of the Association of Swiss Bow Hunters. Melitta Maradi, bow hunter. Vanessa Gerritsen of the Foundation for the Animal in Law. Moderation: Reinhard Schnidrig.

Four panellists with a direct connection to hunting or bow hunting, one critic. Whoever primes an audience in the morning with an equipment show, a shooting demonstration and a promotional film, and then lets a panel of this composition take the stage in the afternoon, is not conducting a dialogue in the true sense. He is staging approval and needs a critical voice in order to be able to certify himself as balanced afterwards.

It is not the first time. At the last Landshut Dialogue, too, there was only a single non-hunting person on the panel.

Our advance coverage: Landshut Dialogue in Utzenstorf: bow hunting panel with familiar hobby hunter faces

The moderation

The moderation also raises the question of neutrality. Reinhard Schnidrig was head of the Wildlife Section at the Federal Office for the Environment from 2005 until the beginning of 2024 and was regarded as Switzerland's most senior game warden and hunting inspector. Under his section leadership, in December 2015 the FOEN authorised the killing of two young wolves from the Calanda pack, against the declared opposition of Pro Natura, WWF and the Swiss Animal Protection organisation. Our reporting from back then: Young wolves are hunted by the Federal Office against the environment

Regarding the proactive pack regulation from December 2023, Schnidrig later said that Federal Councillor Rösti was merely completing what the authority had been preparing for years. In a portrait in the «NZZ» of 2017, he is furthermore quoted with the sentence that without the killing of animals, humans are far removed from what defines them. A moderation coming from this professional and personal background is not a neutral position, regardless of how professionally it is conducted.

What the matter is about factually

Bow hunting is banned in Switzerland, Germany and Austria for reasons of animal welfare. This is not a formality but a deliberate decision. An analysis of 24 North American studies on bow hunting of white-tailed deer arrives at an average wounding rate of 54 per cent, meaning that more than half of the animals shot at are not killed immediately (Report on Bowhunting, summary of 24 US studies). A controlled field study at the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in Oklahoma (Ditchkoff et al. 1998, Proceedings of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies) radio-collared 80 roe bucks; of 22 animals shot at with the bow, 11, that is half, were not recovered by the hobby hunters. Similar rates of 31 to 58 per cent are confirmed by studies from Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey and Wisconsin.

The European bow-hunting lobby, by contrast, points to a Danish survey (European Bowhunting Association, 2005), which finds a wounding rate of only around 5 per cent for roe deer. Important for context: this is not a scientific study with independent monitoring, but a data collection based on voluntary self-reporting by bow hunters within the framework of a «game report». The US figures, by contrast, come from controlled field studies with radio-collared, independently monitored animals, regardless of whether a hunter even notices or reports a missed shot. An independent European or DACH study on bow-hunting wounding rates that reaches this methodological standard does not yet exist.

The Swiss Animal Welfare Act states that no one may inflict unjustified pain, suffering or harm on an animal. Considerable, prolonged pain is not permissible. A hunting method with such a high, independently documented wounding rate cannot be reconciled with this. Better bow technology does not change this, because the arrow kills through bleeding out, not through shock effect.

What must now be demanded

JagdSchweiz should fully disclose the results of the 2025 bow-hunting survey: response rate, questions, evaluation. An umbrella association that publicly promotes a new hunting method cannot rely on a survey that it withholds from the public.

And anyone who speaks of «dialogue» in Utzenstorf should explain why four of the five panel seats went to their own camp, along with the moderation.

Related dossiers and articles:

• Bow hunting in Switzerland must be rejected in the clearest terms
• Landshuter Dialog in Utzenstorf: bow-hunting panel with familiar hobby-hunter faces
• Canton of Jura: hunting president against the wolf
• Young wolves are hunted by the Federal Office against the Environment
• Studies on the impact of hobby hunting on wild animals
• Fact check: «Hunting in Switzerland protects and benefits»