Wait Hunting: Waiting, Technology and Risks

In the hunting community's self-image, stand hunting is a controlled, quiet and animal-friendly alternative to the driven hunt. A closer look reveals a more nuanced picture. Stand hunting often takes place in risky light conditions, is heavily reliant on technology, depends on a high-seat infrastructure that is illegal in many places in Switzerland, and is by no means free of grazing shots, missed shots and follow-up searches. On top of that, according to the Swiss Animal Protection STS, the success rate of follow-up searches for wounded game is only 35 to 65 per cent depending on the canton (see dossier Why animal welfare law ends at the forest edge). Around half of the wild animals wounded by recreational hunting are therefore never found and die slowly without help.

Stand hunting is therefore not the “harmless form of hunting” it is made out to be. It is a form of hunting with a high technology component, a legally problematic infrastructure in public space and structural animal welfare problems that arise regardless of the skill of individual shooters. This dossier exposes the reality behind the ideal.

What awaits you here

How stand hunting works in practice: Procedure, locations, methods and the difference from the driven hunt.
Dusk, moonlight, fog: when “quiet” does not mean “safe”: What the STS report says about shooting conditions and the risk of grazing shots.
Grazing shots, missed shots, follow-up searches: the reality behind the ideal: What the Swiss data and the STS report concretely demonstrate.
High seats as infrastructure: from plank to hunting tower: How stand hunting turns the forest into a hunting installation site.
Illegal high seats: when hunting practice overrides building and protection rules: What spatial planning law, the Forest Act and cantonal practice say about illegal high seats.
Dangers to the public: rotten, unmarked, unchecked: Why illegal high seats are also a safety problem.
Thermal imaging, night vision, silencers: when technology lowers the threshold: What modern hunting technology means for animal welfare and safety.
Ethics: stand hunting as ambush and the question of asymmetry: What it means when an animal is not meant to recognise the threat.
Demands: What minimum standards for wait hunting would mean.
Argumentation guide: Answers to the most common justifications.
Quick links: All relevant articles, studies and resources.

How wait hunting works in practice

Typically, the hunt takes place at dusk or at night: the hunter sits motionless, sometimes for hours, on a high seat, a hunting platform or a raised hide. They watch game trails, forest rides, woodland edges or baiting sites (feeding spots that deliberately lure wild animals) and wait until an animal comes within shooting range. High seats range from simple wooden ladders to elaborate platforms with camouflage netting, heaters and sleeping areas, as well as mobile versions for flexible use. Since 1 February 2025, hunting in forests at night has been prohibited under federal law; the exception is wait hunting, and the cantons may provide for exceptions to prevent wildlife damage (Art. 3ter JSV). Outside forests this ban does not apply and the cantons decide.

In hunting circles, wait hunting is presented as the preferred, more controlled method compared with driven hunts: more time to identify the animal, a calmer target, a better backstop. That is not wrong, but it is incomplete. 'More time' does not mean 'no mistakes', and 'calmer animal' does not mean 'no animal suffering'. What matters is what actually happens in practice and what the data show.

Dusk, moonlight, fog: when 'calm' does not mean 'safe'

Wait hunting is preferably carried out when wild animals are active: at dusk, at night and in the hours just before dawn. It is precisely these light conditions that structurally increase the risk of poor shots. The STS report 'Graze Shots and Follow-up Searches in Swiss Hunting' explicitly names shots taken in moonlight, at dusk or in fog as factors that raise the risk of graze shots.

Added to this are wind, cold and fatigue after hours of waiting, all factors that affect shot quality. These are not exceptional conditions. They are the typical conditions of wait hunting. Anyone who sells a form of hunting as 'animal-friendly' that is structurally practised under the worst possible visibility is describing not reality but an ideal.

Graze shots, missed kills, follow-up searches: the reality behind the ideal

The STS report on grazing shots and follow-up searches is the most important Swiss document available on the question of hunting-related animal suffering. Its central finding: depending on the canton, the success rate of follow-up searches for wounded game is only 35 to 65 per cent. This means that around half of the wild animals that are shot and wounded are never found. They flee, collapse somewhere and die slowly, invisible to statistics, the public and oversight.

According to the STS, the risk factors identified for poor shots include insufficient practice, overconfidence, misplaced ambition, age-related impairment of eyesight and reaction time, and external circumstances such as poor light and crosswinds. To this day, federal law contains no explicit duty to carry out a follow-up search. Article 1a JSV, in force since 1 February 2025, merely obliges the cantons to ensure that those authorised to hunt and the police authorities receive "timely and expert support" in the follow-up search for wounded wild animals. According to various experts, anyone who omits a follow-up search commits ill-treatment within the meaning of Art. 26 para. 1 let. a TSchG, but can be prosecuted only by this detour, because the direct provision is lacking. That this detour is viable is shown by a St. Gallen ruling of September 2026: a recreational hunter from Amden was convicted, among other things, of intentional animal cruelty because he had failed to carry out a follow-up search for a red deer he had wounded ("Quite common in hunting circles"). For years the STS has been calling for an explicit federal duty to carry out follow-up searches, a reporting obligation and public transparency on success rates, so far without result. The few cantonal figures available show how large the problem is: in Grisons, the tracking-dog handlers were called out to 1,018 follow-up searches in 2021, of which 57 per cent were successful (Annual report of the Grisons Office for Hunting and Fishing).

High seats as infrastructure: from simple plank to hunting hide

Wait hunting from an elevated position is barely conceivable without high seats. What often goes undiscussed: high seats are not minor hunting accessories. They are structures and are therefore subject to Swiss spatial planning law, cantonal forest law and building law. The range extends from the simple wooden plank to the elaborate hide with camouflage netting, a lying surface, mobile variants and fixed foundations.

Legally, the situation differs from canton to canton, but it is clearer than is often communicated:

Canton of Bern: Hunting platforms in the forest (freestanding or attached to trees) count as non-forestry small structures and require an exemption permit under Art. 24 of the Spatial Planning Act (RPG). Simple, mobile ladder seats that are removed after the hunt do not require a permit.
Canton of Thurgau: The cantonal forest act requires in § 15 para. 1 the canton's consent (forestry office) for building applications for hunting high seats.
Canton of Glarus: A cantonal information sheet sets out which high seats require a permit.
Canton of Uri: Projects outside building zones are examined strictly under federal law; the competent cantonal office decides on zone conformity or an exemption permit.
Municipality of Flims: Has introduced its own regulation for high seats and wait-hunting huts, with clear requirements on location, building permits and maximum period of existence.

Illegal high seats: when hunting practice overrides building and conservation rules

Hundreds of unpermitted high seats stand in Swiss forests, as the Beobachter already documented in 2009. The situation has not fundamentally improved since: municipalities, cantons and the federal government rarely concern themselves with compliance with building laws and forest regulations. Anyone walking through Swiss forests sees countless hunting platforms that meet no requirements on area, materials or permits, erected as though public forest were the private property of a hunting interest group.

The key point is this: the landowner's consent is not enough. A municipal building permit without cantonal approval is not enough either. Without a proper exemption or zone-conformity permit, such structures are simply unlawful. And in Switzerland the limitation period for structures in breach of building law does not start automatically with construction: as long as significant nature and landscape interests are affected, unlawful high seats can still be removed decades later. Public forest is not a private hunting ground. The law says so clearly; enforcement has so far hardly followed.

For organisations and political actors: every high seat in the forest can be checked for lawfulness. A complete high-seat inventory (with location, material, year of construction and permit) exists in no Swiss canton. This is not an administrative oversight. It is a failure of oversight that could be remedied in a targeted way.

Dangers to the public: rotten, unmarked, unchecked

Illegal and uncontrolled high seats are not only a legal problem. They are also a safety problem. Old, rotten structures can collapse, endangering people who go to the forest to relax. Without clear marking showing the owner, hunting ground and year of construction, neither liability nor removal can be enforced.

What is taken for granted in every other area (a permit requirement, safety inspections, liability, removal when no longer in use) is missing for hunting high seats in the majority of Swiss cantons. The public debate about wait hunting therefore cannot stop at animal welfare and shooting accuracy. It must also ask: who decided that the Swiss forest may be used as a surface for hunting installations, without an inventory, without oversight, without liability?

Thermal imaging, night vision, silencers: when technology lowers the inhibition threshold

Today, wait hunting is often the area in which hunting technology has the greatest impact. Thermal cameras for detecting wild animals, night-vision optics, silencers and ballistic apps for wind correction and distance calculation are fundamentally changing the field of hunting practice. The revision of the JSV (Hunting Ordinance), in force since 1 February 2025, has made silencers lawful under hunting law (a permit under weapons law is still required) and shortened the minimum barrel length from 45 to 40 cm, both measures that primarily serve to make wait hunting more efficient. Night-vision aiming devices and combinations of devices with a comparable function remain prohibited under Art. 2 para. 1 let. e JSV; thermal imaging devices that are not mounted on the weapon, by contrast, are not covered by federal law, and the cantons may restrict or prohibit them (reply of the Federal Council to the Interpellation 25.3278, June 2025).

What is often left out of the discussion: according to hunting-technology specialists, thermal imaging attachments used for shooting are expressly problematic. Points of impact shift at different digital magnification levels, ricochets off minimal obstacles (a blade of grass is enough) lead to uncontrollable fragment hits, and the terrain behind the target is often unrecognisable where it meets the horizon. A German-language hunting-technology retailer states unequivocally: “The explosive rise in hunting accidents during night hunting with thermal imaging technology speaks volumes.” When technology increases efficiency but at the same time structurally introduces new sources of error, that is not progress for animal welfare. It is a shifting of risk.

Ethics: wait hunting as an ambush and the question of asymmetry

Wait hunting rests on a fundamental asymmetry: the hunter is elevated, camouflaged and motionless. The wild animal is not meant to notice the threat, because otherwise it will not come close enough. This is precisely why wait hunting is sometimes classed as “less stressful”: the animal dies before it knows there is any danger. That is true in the ideal case. In the non-ideal case, it does not die instantly, flees wounded and suffers for a long time.

The ethical problem lies deeper: the label “animal-friendly” refers to the moment of death, not to the system behind it. That system includes deliberate luring with bait sites, hours of human presence in wildlife habitat, the use of night and twilight as cover, technologisation extending to thermal imaging optics, and an infrastructure of high seats that permanently alters the forest. Less flight stress at the moment of the shot does not mean less suffering within the system. It only means that the suffering arises at a different point and is less visible.

Demands: what minimum standards would mean

If wait hunting takes place at all, at least the following conditions would have to be met:

Complete high seat inventory for each canton: Every high seat in the forest is recorded, measured and legally reviewed, with location, material, year of construction, permits and owner. Unlawful high seats are removed or legalised within a defined deadline.
Permit requirement and obligation to dismantle: Every new high seat requires a permit. High seats that are no longer actively used must be dismantled within two hunting seasons. Liability rests with the holder of the hunting licence.
Federal obligation to carry out follow-up searches: Follow-up searches for wounded game are to be regulated by law at federal level. Every follow-up search must be reported. The cantonal success rate is to be published annually.
Ban on night hunting without a safety perimeter: Night hunting with thermal imaging optics and silencers is only permitted with prior official authorisation and a clearly defined, closed-off perimeter.
No baiting in sensitive habitats: Baiting in natural forest reserves, protection forests and recreational areas is to be banned.
Priority for non-lethal alternatives: Before a kill from a high seat is authorised, non-lethal alternatives must have been examined and rejected, with documentation.

Talking points

“Stand hunting is more animal-friendly than driven hunts, and this is scientifically proven.” In a direct comparison, stand hunting causes less flight stress. That is true. But “less bad than driven hunts” is not an animal welfare standard. When around half of the wounded animals are never found and die, when shots are structurally taken in poor visibility, and when the infrastructure is illegal in many places, “less bad” is an inadequate yardstick.

“High seats are harmless aids, nobody makes a problem of them.” The Beobachter investigation showed as early as 2009: there are hundreds of unauthorised high seats in Swiss forests. Federal spatial planning law is unambiguous: anyone building outside building zones needs an exceptional permit. Without one, high seats do not stand in a legal grey area; they stand in the realm of illegality.

“Thermal imaging and night vision make hunting safer and more precise.” Specialist hunting-equipment dealers explicitly refute this claim: thermal imaging clip-on devices used for shooting lead to point-of-impact deviations, unpredictable ricochets and poorly placed hits. The number of hunting accidents during night hunting with thermal imaging technology has risen. Efficiency and safety are not the same thing. Technology that lowers the inhibition threshold does not produce a more ethical hunting practice.

“Follow-up searches solve the problem of wounded animals.” The STS data say the opposite: a success rate of 35 to 65 per cent means that up to 65 per cent of the animals tracked are never found. The follow-up search is not a safety net. It is a partially functioning corrective in a system that structurally produces animal suffering.

Quick links

Articles on Wild beim Wild:

Related dossiers:

Our Standard

Wait hunting from a high seat is marketed as the “controlled” form of hunting. In practice it means: shots fired at dusk, illegal high seats in the forest, follow-up search success rates of between 35 and 65 per cent, and a level of technology that increases efficiency without improving safety. IG Wild beim Wild demands that wait hunting be subject to the same standards of transparency, authorisation and animal welfare as any other activity involving live firearms in public space.

We document what lies behind the ideal so that the public can judge whether “quiet” also means “justifiable”. This dossier is updated continuously as new data, court rulings or political developments require.

Call to Action: Do you know of illegal high seats in your region, or have you documented hunting incidents involving wait hunting? Write to us with the date, place and source: wildbeimwild.com/kontakt

More on the topic of recreational hunting: in our hunting dossier we bring together fact checks, analyses and background reports.