Hobby Hunters Must Help Pay for Wild Boar Damage
Federal Court confirms: hunting associations must co-finance wild boar damage. Appeal from Solothurn rejected.
Hunting associations must contribute financially to the compensation of wild boar damage.
This has been decided by the Federal Court, which rejected the appeal of a Solothurn hunting group against the cantonal obligation to pay compensation.
The Wartenfels-Lostorf hunting group must now – as ordered by the canton of Solothurn at the end of 2014 – pay 8,635 francs and 25 centimes. The twelve appellants of the hunting group had been unwilling to accept this.
In their appeal, they contested the obligation to compensate for wild boar damage at 50 percent, as enshrined in the cantonal hunting law. They argued that this obligation was contrary to federal law.
The federal judges in Lausanne see this very differently. They upheld a ruling by the Solothurn Administrative Court, as stated in the Federal Court judgment published on Thursday.
Neither the federal Hunting Act nor the Forest Act would preclude requiring those entitled to hunt to contribute to the financing of compensation. They benefit from recreational hunting, and it is within their power to regulate animal populations and thereby influence the extent of wildlife damage.
Different from private law liability
The Federal Court also notes in its reasoning that the federal Hunting Act does not require that this compensation be modelled on private law liability. It is rather a matter for cantonal law to establish the conditions for compensation.
Public law may even provide for an obligation to pay compensation without any breach of duty having occurred. The Federal Court considers the appeal of the hobby hunters to be unfounded. The appellants must therefore pay court costs of 2,000 francs.
New law reduces cost-sharing
The new hunting law of the canton of Solothurn provides that lease holders will in future only have to pay 35 percent of the incurred wild boar damage.
Furthermore, the amount is not to exceed the annual lease fee of the respective association. In the canton of Solothurn, wild boar damage amounts to between 60,000 and 300,000 francs per year.
(Judgment 2C_975/2015 of 31 March 2015)
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