Hunters: Role, power, training and criticism

Around 30,000 people in Switzerland hunt. That's 0.3 percent of the population. They have legal access to firearms, kill around 120,000 wild animals annually, sit on cantonal expert commissions, influence hunting legislation and public debates, and consistently present themselves as selfless guardians of nature.

The Swiss Hunting Barometer 2025 paints a clear demographic picture: Hobby hunters are predominantly male, older than average, and have above-average incomes. Access to hobby hunting is expensive: hunting training, examination fees, equipment, licenses or hunting leases, hunting dogs, and ongoing expenses add up to several thousand Swiss francs per year. This is not a leisure activity for everyone; it is one for a specific segment of society.

This dossier analyzes who recreational hunters in Switzerland actually are: their demographics, their training, their gun ownership, their political power, and the contradictions between their self-image and reality. The focus is not on whether individual recreational hunters are good people – but rather on which structures, incentives, and power mechanisms maintain the recreational hunting system, which is increasingly rejected by a majority of society.

What awaits you here

Who are hobby hunters? Demographics, income, age, gender : What the Swiss Hunting Barometer 2025 shows, why hobby hunting is a socially selective leisure activity and what this says about representativeness and political ambition.
Hunting training: What is learned – and what is not : How the hunting exam varies from canton to canton, why animal welfare and ethics play a subordinate role in the training, and what a training that mainly tests weapons handling and species knowledge reveals about the system's self-image.
Gun ownership: Hunting as a loophole in gun laws : What proportion of private gun owners are hobby hunters, why a hunting license in Switzerland is one of the easiest ways to access legal firearms, and what this means in terms of security policy.
Sociology of hobby hunting: Network, loyalty, isolation : How hunting functions as a social network with strong internal loyalties and a culture of mutual protection, why external criticism is systematically deflected, and what this means for the self-control of the system.
Hunting lobby: Power without a mandate : How hunting associations exert political influence at the federal and cantonal levels, where they sit in legislative processes, and why their power is blatantly disproportionate to the size of their social base.
Hobby hunters and animal welfare: Rhetoric vs. practice : Why animal welfare is emphasized in the self-presentation of hunters, but is structurally subordinate in practice, and what the lack of independent oversight of hunting practices means.
Public perception: Why the media perpetuate the hunting myth : How media coverage of hunting is structurally distorted in favor of hobby hunting and what critical perspectives are too rarely given.
International comparisons: What hunting-free or low-hunting countries show : Why countries or regions with lower hunting intensity do not show ecological disadvantages and what Geneva, large protected areas and hunting-free regions of Europe empirically prove.
What needs to change : Concrete political demands.
Argumentation : Answers to the most common justifications of hobby hunters.
Quick links : All relevant articles, studies and dossiers.

Who are recreational hunters? Demographics, income, age, gender

The Swiss Hunting Barometer 2025 provides the clearest available picture of Swiss recreational hunting. The results show that 39 percent of surveyed hunters are 55 years or older, and 33 percent are between 35 and 54 years old. Only 28 percent are younger than 35 – a recruitment problem that hunting associations are also addressing internally. Regarding income, there is a clear overrepresentation of the highest income bracket: recreational hunters with a monthly household income of over 9,000 Swiss francs are significantly more represented than the Swiss population average in this income bracket.

Access to recreational hunting is expensive and therefore socially selective. Training costs, examination fees, firearms purchase and maintenance, hunting license or hunting lease, hunting clothing, optics, hunting dog including training – the total annual costs of recreational hunting can easily reach four to five figures in Swiss francs, depending on the canton and system. This is a leisure activity that not everyone can afford or wants to undertake. Furthermore, the gender distribution is a factor: recreational hunting is predominantly male. While opening it up to women is politically desired and emphasized by hunting associations, the actual composition of recreational hunters remains heavily male-dominated.

What does this mean for the political ambitions of recreational hunters? A small, above-average-income, above-average-age, predominantly male minority of 0.3 percent of the population claims the right to kill 120,000 wild animals per year – and to help shape the political framework for this. Their claim to act "in the public interest" is not demographically supported. It is a self-serving claim cloaked in rhetoric about the common good.

More on this topic: Hunting in Switzerland: Numbers, systems and the end of a narrative and the psychology of hunting

Hunting training: What is taught – and what is not

Hunting training in Switzerland is regulated at the cantonal level. This means there are no uniform minimum standards for animal welfare, ethics, or shooting accuracy at the federal level. In the canton of Aargau, the hunting exam includes modules on game hygiene, firearms handling, ballistics, the effects of shots, hunting dogs, and wildlife damage prevention. In the canton of Zurich, training lasts at least two years as a trainee in a hunting area, followed by a practical exam. In the canton of Graubünden, a mandatory LARGO course on game hygiene and wildlife anatomy is required, and at least 50 hours of game management experience are a prerequisite for the theoretical exam.

What is not systematically and comprehensively tested in any cantonal hunting training program is animal welfare law, pain perception in wild animals, population ecology principles beyond estimation methods, and ethical decision-making in gray-area situations. Hunting training produces individuals who know how to identify wild animals, handle weapons safely, and process game. Whether they understand the physiological implications of misfires and how to minimize them in an animal-welfare-friendly manner is not systematically assessed. The result: In the canton of Graubünden, approximately 1,000 charges and fines are issued annually against recreational hunters, within a system that officially certifies their participants as possessing "expertise.".

The German Hunting Association explicitly names hunting ethics as a training objective, without linking it to a binding examination structure. In reality, hunting ethics remains mere rhetoric: it is decorative in a training system whose core is weapons handling and species identification. What is missing is what distinguishes every other activity with a comparable potential for endangering third parties and living beings: independent, nationally uniform minimum standards, regular proof of shooting proficiency, and a mandatory animal welfare ethics examination with consequences for violations.

More on this topic: Hunting accidents in Switzerland and dossier on hunting dogs: deployment, suffering and animal welfare

Gun ownership: Hunting as a loophole in gun law

In Switzerland, approximately 2.3 million firearms are privately owned – this equates to roughly 45 weapons per 100 inhabitants, making Switzerland one of the most gun-dense countries in Europe. The largest group of private gun owners are members of shooting clubs. The third largest and particularly relevant group consists of recreational hunters: In a representative 2023 study on gun ownership, 12 percent of the surveyed gun owners stated that they use their firearms for hunting.

What this means: In Switzerland, a hunting license is one of the most direct legal pathways to firearms – without a temperament test, without a ban on alcohol while hunting, and without uniform minimum psychological requirements. Anyone who obtains a hunting license simultaneously acquires the right to purchase and carry one or more long guns – rifles, shotguns, combination guns. This right is not contingent on a psychiatric clearance certificate, regular shooting tests, or a review of current health status. This is precisely what makes hunting firearms law a security policy loophole: Access to firearms via a hunting license is easier than acquiring firearms in many other European countries.

Swiss hunting accident statistics reflect this gap: From the age of 40, the number of hunting accidents rises dramatically. In a system without upper age limits, mandatory reaction time tests, and regular shooting proficiency tests, known risk factors for firearm misuse—age, declining eyesight, and slowed reaction time—are not systematically monitored. The result is deaths and injuries caused by hunting weapons every year—in a system that describes itself as professional and responsible.

More on this topic: Switzerland: Statistics on fatal hunting accidents and hunting victims in Europe

Sociology of hobby hunting: networking, loyalty, isolation

Recreational hunting is more than just a pastime. It's a tightly knit social network with strong internal loyalties, its own value systems, its own language – hunters' jargon – and a culture that systematically delegitimizes external criticism as "anti-hunting," "emotionally driven," or "ignorant." Anyone within the hunting community who points out problems risks social exclusion. Anyone who criticizes from the outside is confronted with the accusation of not understanding nature.

This culture of isolation has structural consequences. Self-regulation in recreational hunting is limited: there is no independent oversight of hunting practices, no obligation to report accidental kills, and no systematic evaluation of hunting accidents or animal welfare violations by neutral bodies. What does exist are cantonal game wardens—often recreational hunters themselves—who are supposed to monitor the system internally. This is structurally the same as a self-regulating banking sector: it lacks the institutional distance required for independent oversight. In the canton of Graubünden, 1,000 reports and fines per year demonstrate that this self-regulation system does not function.

Hunters' jargon, as a linguistic system, fulfills an important function: it romanticizes what, objectively described, is the killing of an animal. The "hunter" "hunts" the "game" and carries it to the "game collection." "Ethical hunting" promises dignity without guaranteeing it. This language serves internal cohesion—and external defense: those who don't speak hunters' jargon are treated as outsiders who "don't know anything." This isn't a communication strategy, but an identity system. And it's one of the most effective tools a small minority uses to deflect societal criticism.

More on this topic: Hunters' tales and the psychology of hunting

Hunting lobby: Power without a mandate

Hunting associations do not see themselves merely as leisure or traditional clubs. They are political actors – at the federal and cantonal levels, with particular influence where enforcement decisions are made. Their core concerns are safeguarding hunting freedoms, influencing hunting and nature conservation law, and protecting recreational hunting from public criticism. They are represented on cantonal expert commissions, participate in the development of enforcement aids and guidelines, and receive information from parliamentary advisory bodies that is not accessible to the public.

The political asymmetry is striking: 0.3 percent of the population – recreational hunters – have organized, funded, and politically integrated lobbying structures. The 99.7 percent who have no interest in recreational hunting have no comparable political representation. Transparency International Switzerland has documented this imbalance for various lobbying areas: In some parliamentary committees, lobbying mandates can be so concentrated that a particular interest group effectively holds the majority. This is especially true for hunting associations in the area of environmental and hunting committees, where recreational hunters, farmers, and related interest groups are structurally overrepresented.

The result is demonstrably legislative: In Bern, the National Council and the Council of States have repeatedly lowered the hurdles for wolf culls – even though the number of livestock kills is declining. In the future, wolves should be even easier to "preventively regulate," even in hunting reserves. This is not a decision based on scientific evidence. It is a decision driven by lobbying pressure. The hunting lobby calls it "wildlife management." Ecologists call it what it is: the political imposition of hunting interests against scientific consensus.

More on this topic: How hunting associations influence politics and the public , and the Swiss hunters' lobby

Hobby hunters and animal welfare: Rhetoric vs. practice

"Ethical hunting" is the hunting ethics term used by recreational hunters to claim they respect animals when killing them. The Federal Supreme Court and cantonal courts have repeatedly examined this concept. A court in Bellinzona confirmed that hunting associations promote virtually everything that is cruel, unnecessary, and heartless – and present this as compatible with ethical hunting. This demonstrates how far removed the term is from a binding animal welfare standard.

Specifically: Hunting in dens involves sending trained dogs into fox and badger burrows. Trapping leaves wild animals waiting in live traps for potentially days until the hunter arrives. In driven hunts, animals are chased in panic across vast areas before being shot – with measurable cortisol levels that demonstrate the physiological extent of the stress. Shotgun pellets aimed at small game often result in injuries, not immediate death. These practices are permitted under hunting law. They contradict the wording of animal welfare laws – but are effectively exempted from them through special hunting regulations.

What is structurally lacking is independent oversight: No neutral authority systematically checks whether minimum animal welfare standards are being observed during hunting. No mandatory reporting of accidental kills ensures that wounded and unrecovered animals are statistically recorded. No annual review by external inspectors ensures that "ethical hunting" is more than a self-certification system. This is no accident. It is the result of decades of political lobbying by the hunting establishment to prevent independent oversight of recreational hunting, because they know what such oversight would reveal.

More on this topic: Hunting and animal welfare: What the practice does to wild animals and wild animals, fear of death and lack of stunning

Public perception: Why the media perpetuate the hunting myth

Hunting reports in Swiss media follow recognizable patterns: The hobby hunter appears as a nature-loving expert who knows the forest at dawn and understands wildlife better than anyone else. High-altitude hunting in Graubünden is a "traditional ritual." The Lucerne hunting fair is an "industry gathering." Mistaken kills, hunting victims, animal welfare violations, and lobbying structures are rarely or never mentioned in these same media outlets.

Why? First, because hunting associations systematically provide images, press releases, and interviewees – and newsrooms, driven by efficiency, use this material. Second, because critical perspectives on hunting are categorized as "animal rights" or "activist" and thus discredited before their content has been verified. Third, because recreational hunters are key social figures in many rural areas – local council members, club presidents, game wardens – and local media are reluctant to damage these networks. The result is a structural bias in reporting in favor of recreational hunting, which overestimates its public support.

What helps counteract this is investigative journalism that analyzes hunting accident statistics, documents animal welfare violations, exposes lobbying structures, and relates the demographic reality of recreational hunters to their political influence. This is precisely what wildbeimwild.com does – with verified sources, without moralizing, but with the assertion that a minority leisure activity with the killing of 120,000 wild animals per year must be subject to critical public debate.

More on this topic: Hunting policy 2025 and How the Spreitenbach Environmental Arena legitimizes animal cruelty

International comparisons: What hunting-free or low-hunting regions show

Canton of Geneva, Switzerland: No militia hunting since 1974. The result after 50 years: stable to growing wildlife populations, dramatically increased biodiversity, 30,000 winter birds instead of just a few hundred, and greater social acceptance of wildlife in populated areas. Large protected areas in Europe – national parks, wilderness reserves, core zones of biosphere reserves – consistently show higher biodiversity levels in long-term studies than intensively hunted comparison regions.

Countries with low hunting intensity or strict regulations show no ecological disadvantages. The Netherlands has restricted hunting to a minimal handful of species – without wildlife populations spiraling out of control. England and Wales banned fox hunting in 2004 – without a fox population explosion. Austria and Germany introduced bans on lead ammunition – without a collapse of recreational hunting. These examples demonstrate what is structurally possible when political will exists and lobbying structures do not have the final say.

What international comparisons don't show are countries where abolishing recreational hunting would have led to ecological disasters. The argument that without recreational hunting, wildlife populations would explode uncontrollably and ecosystems would collapse is not empirically supported. It's a scare tactic propagated by hunting associations because they have run out of other arguments.

More on this topic: Hunting in the Canton of Geneva: Hunting ban, psychology and perception of violence , and alternatives to hunting: What really helps without killing animals

What would need to change

Nationally standardized minimum standards for hunting training: Animal welfare law, pain perception in wild animals, ethical decision-making, and minimizing accidental shooting must be mandatory and integrated into the hunting training of all cantons, and must be relevant to examinations. Model proposal: Sample texts for proposals critical of hunting regulations
Mandatory psychological assessment and regular shooting proficiency tests: Anyone handling firearms in public forests must be psychologically suitable and proficient in shooting, verifiably, regularly, and independently tested. Model proposal: Recreational hunting and crime: Suitability checks, reporting requirements, and consequences
A ban on alcohol and other substances while hunting: Every other armed profession or hobby has this standard. Hobby hunting does not.
Independent oversight of hunting practices: Hunting control by external, state-employed inspectors. Mandatory reporting of misfires and animal welfare violations. Publicly accessible annual reports. Model proposal: Independent hunting supervision: External control instead of self-regulation
Transparency regarding hunting lobby mandates in parliaments and commissions: Parliamentarians who hold mandates with hunting associations and simultaneously sit on hunting-related commissions must fully and publicly declare this conflict of interest.
Consistent review of special hunting regulations in animal welfare law: Hunting in burrows, trapping without daily monitoring, and driven hunts for pregnant or young animals must be subjected to an independent animal welfare review, without the involvement of the hunting lobby.

Argumentation

"Hobby hunters are well-trained experts on wildlife." Hunting training tests firearms handling and species identification. Animal welfare law, population ecology, and ethical decision-making are not mandatory and not systematically relevant to the exam. In the canton of Graubünden, 1,000 charges and fines are issued annually against hobby hunters – in a system that officially certifies its participants as possessing "expertise." Those who truly want wildlife expertise need wildlife biology – not a hunting license.

“Hunting associations represent legitimate societal interests.” Hunting associations represent the interests of 0.3 percent of the population. They do so with political influence that is completely disproportionate to this small number: committee representation, participation in enforcement, direct contacts with cantonal agencies, media presence, and political networks. This is lobbying for a minority leisure activity – not a mandate to serve the common good.

"Hobby hunters know nature better than others." Knowledge of nature is not a hunting privilege. Wildlife biologists, ecologists, forestry experts, Pro Natura staff, and game wardens know nature at least as well—often better—because their training is scientifically based and not influenced by hunting interests. Knowledge of nature does not justify the right to kill.

"Without recreational hunters, there would be no one in the forest to protect wildlife." In the canton of Geneva, state-employed game wardens have been protecting wildlife since 1974 without volunteer hunting – effectively, professionally, and humanely. Wildlife protection is the responsibility of professionals, not recreational hunters who have primarily paid to kill wild animals.

"Hunting training is rigorous – only those who are truly suitable pass." Pass rates for hunting exams in Switzerland are over 80 percent in most cantons. There is no temperament test, no alcohol ban, no requirement for regular proof of shooting proficiency, and no nationwide minimum standards for animal welfare ethics. That's hardly rigorous.

“Hunting is part of Swiss culture and identity.” Culture and identity are not a license for animal suffering, minority privileges, or political influence disproportionate to the size of a group. A society that takes animal welfare seriously cannot exempt cultural practices that cause animal suffering from its ethical evaluation. Other traditions have also been abolished as societal knowledge and empathy increased.

Quick links

Posts on Wild beim Wild:

Related dossiers:

External sources:

Our claim

Hobby hunters are not neutral conservationists. They are actors with vested interests, legalized access to weapons, political networks, and a self-presentation that does not stand up to objective scrutiny. This is not a personal condemnation—it is a structural analysis. The structures within which hobby hunters operate are designed to protect their interests: fragmented training across cantons without uniform animal welfare standards, a firearms law system without temperament testing, a hunting lobby with disproportionate political influence, and a culture of self-regulation that systematically prevents external oversight.

A society that takes wildlife seriously must change these structures – not because recreational hunters are bad people, but because 120,000 wild animals killed each year, unchecked exceptions to gun laws, animal welfare violations without consequences, and lobbying power without a democratic mandate are unacceptable conditions. The demand for transparency, oversight, uniform standards, and political representation of the majority is not radicalism. It is the bare minimum that an enlightened society can demand of a minority recreational activity with deadly consequences for both wildlife and humans.

More on the topic of hobby hunting: In our dossier on hunting, we compile fact checks, analyses and background reports.