Marcel Dettling's double standards

Marcel Dettling is a farmer who runs a typical mountain farm in the canton of Schwyz together with his family.

Editorial Team Wild beim Wild — July 11, 2025

Marcel Dettling was elected to the National Council in 2015, before serving for eight years as a member of the Cantonal Council. Since spring 2024, he has been president of the Swiss People's Party (SVP), the equivalent of the AfD in Germany – and certainly far-right.

The average citizen is constantly bombarded in the media with reports about the Swiss People's Party's (SVP) fears of wolves. These reports often claim that people are afraid to leave their homes, especially with children, or that the wolf is spreading fear and terror.

Marcel Dettling is under fire for his statements and positions on the subject of wolves, as he expresses controversial opinions in public that are interpreted differently by various interest groups. Critics accuse him of holding a rather negative view of the wolf.

Most of the time it is not the wolves themselves that are frightening, but the poor portrayal by their critics, which distracts from their own shortcomings.

Marcel Dettling is one of those politicians, like most of his SVP party, who, based on their political activities in the context of animal welfare in Bern, do the least for animals. He, like his predecessor, receives the dismal score of 0/5 .

At the same time, hardly a week goes by without one of these SVP politicians running afoul of the law and making headlines. One assaults a prostitute, another uses a pseudonym to portray himself in a positive light in reader comments. SVP politician in custody on suspicion of sexual acts with children, SVP politician convicted of "negligent illegal importation of weapons into Swiss territory without a permit," Geneva SVP president brutally beats neighbors with a pitchfork, SVP member from Glarus can be called a "crazy right-wing extremist," court convicts SVP politician Naveen Hofstetter of racism—these are some of the headlines.

Swiss hobby hunters keep the justice system busy

The SVP is also largely responsible for the fact that, for example, around 84 million farm animals were slaughtered in Switzerland in 2022. That's 7 million animals every month, 230,500 per day, 9,600 per hour, 160 per minute, and 2.7 every second! These are the same people who loudly complain whenever wolves attack livestock in herds that aren't properly protected. Last year, there were a few hundred.

The fact that millions of animals are killed for meat every year is a perpetual ethical catastrophe. No other animal welfare issue affects so many animals because of humans.

The agricultural sector that produces these mountains of meat is extremely harmful to the climate. It causes well over half of the methane emissions from the entire agricultural sector, which in turn generates around 12.4 percent of Switzerland's greenhouse gases. Furthermore, the cultivation of animal feed occupies around 90% of agricultural land in Switzerland, while an additional 1.4 million tons of animal feed are imported annually.

Thanks to improved livestock protection measures , the number of wolf kills decreased significantly by the end of September 2024. In the canton of Graubünden, the decrease was 35%, and in the canton of Valais, it was 15%. Nationwide, the number of kills had already fallen by 40% in 2023 compared to 2022. The decline in livestock kills began as early as 2023, even before the first wolves were culled preventively.

The unscientific wolf massacre during the 2024/25 hunt cost taxpayers millions of francs – a figure that is completely absurd given the actual minimal damage caused by wolves and in times of austerity.

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