Night hunting and high-tech: the myth of fair hunting

Around 29,300 recreational hunters are active in Switzerland (Federal Hunting Statistics 2025). Many of them now use technologies that, only a generation ago, were reserved exclusively for the military and law enforcement: thermal imaging cameras that make the body heat of wild animals visible in complete darkness, night sights that enable precise shots without any daylight, drones that track down and drive wild animals from the air, and digital game calls that exploit instincts millions of years old.

What recreational hunters market as “contemporary hunting practice” and “efficient wildlife protection” turns out, on closer inspection, to be a system of technological overpowering that strips wild animals of their last remaining refuges: the night, the burrow, the thicket. The narrative of tradition, closeness to nature and “fair hunting” is thereby finally refuted.

In this area, the Swiss legal situation is a patchwork that can barely be monitored: cantons regulate differently, enforcement is structurally almost impossible, and although a ban on night hunting in forests (Art. 3ter JSV) and a ban on drones (Art. 2 JSV) have applied at federal level since 1 February 2025, there is no coherent response to technological escalation as a whole. This dossier documents the facts, identifies the animal welfare problems and shows why technologically upgraded recreational hunting is the opposite of fair chase.

What awaits you here

• Thermal imaging cameras: How wild animals are tracked down even before dusk, why even recreational hunters in Valais demanded a ban, and what this says about proportionality.
• Night vision devices: Why the night-time shot is especially problematic from an animal welfare perspective, what injury patterns result, and what happens to wounded animals in the darkness.
• Drones: How drones are used as “aerial beaters”, what the canton of Glarus and, since 2025, the federal government stipulate in this regard, and where the line runs between fawn rescue and a hunting tool.
• Digital calling devices: How recreational hunting uses evolutionary instincts as a trap, which devices are freely available, and why the narrative of «fair competition» is being dismantled.
• The Swiss patchwork: Why 26 cantons produce 26 different regulations, what the Federal Council stated in 2025 about the legal situation, and why enforcement is structurally almost impossible.
• The fairy tale of fair hunting: Why high-tech hunting and »Waidgerechtigkeit« (hunters' code of conduct) are an irreconcilable contradiction.
• What would need to change: Six concrete demands for proportionate regulation.
• Argumentation guide: Answers to the most common justifications of the recreational hunting lobby.
• Quick links: All relevant articles, studies and dossiers at a glance.

Thermal imaging cameras: Driven out of the protection of darkness

The thermal imaging camera has evolved from a specialist tool into a standard piece of equipment for recreational hunting. “Such night vision devices have experienced a veritable boom. Almost every hunting group has one with them. This increases competition among hunters and raises the pressure on wildlife,” says Sven Wirthner of the Valais Office for Hunting, Fisheries and Wildlife. The camera is used to scan hunting grounds for animals even before dusk; the shots are fired at first daylight on the roe deer and red deer identified during the night. Night-time, which is evolutionarily the most important protective zone for wild animals, is thereby systematically eliminated.

Even among recreational hunters, acceptance of this practice is limited. The canton of Valais banned thermal imaging cameras on the initiative of its own recreational hunters, not because a law required it, but because the pressure on wildlife had become too great. «Animals should also have their chance to escape the hunters with their instinct», is the reasoning given in Valais. It is remarkable: if recreational hunters themselves classify a tool as too effective and therefore unfair, any serious animal welfare debate should take exactly that as its starting point rather than dismissing it as an individual opinion.

In the canton of Bern, thermal imaging cameras are legal for observation as long as they are not used directly as an aiming aid when shooting. Other cantons have different rules. Under federal law, only night vision sights and device combinations with a comparable function are prohibited (Art. 2 para. 1 lit. e JSV); thermal imaging devices that are not mounted on the weapon are not covered by this ban, and the cantons may restrict or prohibit them on the basis of Art. 2 para. 3 JSV (response of the Federal Council to the Interpellation 25.3278, June 2025). What the practice looks like is shown by a St. Gallen ruling from September 2026: a recreational hunter from Amden had tracked down and shot red deer at night with a thermal imaging camera and had brought forward the kill times in his reports ("Quite common in hunting circles"). The result is a technological advantage that de facto generates hunting pressure around the clock and leaves wild animals no more periods of rest. From an animal welfare perspective, chronic hunting pressure is not a marginal problem: constant stress raises cortisol levels, disrupts reproductive cycles, increases the risk of accidents during flight and weakens the immune defences.

More on this: The psychology of hunting and Hunting myths: 12 claims you should scrutinise critically

Night vision devices: when the animal no longer stands a chance

While thermal imaging cameras are used for reconnaissance, night sights and thermal imaging scopes go one step further: they allow shooting directly in complete darkness. The legal situation under hunting law is contradictory in itself. In Germany, thermal imaging scopes are permitted as clip-on devices for hunting wild boar in several federal states; fully integrated thermal imaging riflescopes, by contrast, remain prohibited. In Switzerland, the federal hunting ordinance prohibits night-vision sights and combinations of devices with a comparable function (Art. 2 para. 1 let. e JSV), which also covers thermal imaging clip-on devices mounted on the weapon. The cantons may, however, grant exemption permits to specially trained recreational hunters, for instance to prevent wildlife damage or for follow-up searches (Art. 3 JSV); the canton of Solothurn has its own information sheet on this. The consequence: the same device is prohibited in one canton and used under licence in another. In the canton of Appenzell Outer Rhodes, an official information sheet exists that explicitly lists night sights as prohibited aids.

From an animal welfare perspective, the night shot is particularly problematic. Reliably identifying an animal species with thermal imaging devices in the dark is considerably harder than in daylight, which makes mistaken kills more likely. The situation is even more serious for animals that are wounded but not killed outright: the follow-up search can generally begin at the earliest the next morning. The injured animal spends hours in its death throes, alone, in the dark, with no possibility of help. Wildtierschutz Deutschland states: «Animals that are wounded at night often can no longer be found during the follow-up search, with the result that they die an agonising death.» That is not hunting craft. That is organised suffering.

At federal level, political pressure moved in the opposite direction in 2025: with the Interpellation 25.3278 SVP National Councillor Nicolas Kolly asked whether the Federal Council would be prepared to permit night vision devices for "better and safer hunting practice". In June 2025, the Federal Council stated that night vision sights remain prohibited, that thermal imaging devices without a weapon mount are not covered by federal law, and that it considers the current rules, including the cantons' room for manoeuvre, to be appropriate. A coherent federal regulation for thermal imaging devices is therefore still lacking. The recreational hunting lobby argues that night sights are indispensable for "efficient wild boar regulation". The argument is circular: recreational hunting itself substantially contributes to creating the problem of wild boars needing to be regulated by decimating natural predators, and then demands more technology to solve it.

More on this: Dossier Why animal welfare law ends at the treeline and Cruel hunting methods: tolerated and promoted

Drones: The "driver from the air"

Proponents market drones in hunting as useful for rescuing roe deer fawns from mowing machines. That is legitimate and, from an animal welfare perspective, to be welcomed. But using drones as an active hunting tool is an entirely different category. In the canton of Glarus, the cantonal government has stated that drones can be used as "drivers from the air", that they "directly disturb" wildlife, which violates fair-chase principles (Weidgerechtigkeit), and it called for a review of the hunting regulations. The federal government has since acted: since 1 February 2025, civilian unmanned aircraft have been banned for hunting under federal law, except for use by qualified persons for fawn rescue (Art. 2 para. 1 lit. o JSV).

Drones allow wild animals to be systematically tracked down, flushed out and steered from the air. For the animals affected, this means yet another element of total surveillance of their habitat: no thicket offers safety any more when a drone is circling overhead. Roe deer and fawns in particular, which instinctively "freeze" when in danger (that is, remain motionless in tall grass or undergrowth), are especially exposed to drones. Freezing, an evolutionary protective strategy, is deliberately exploited and rendered worthless by drone hunting.

The ban is progress, but it is only worth as much as its enforcement: whether a drone over the forest is searching for roe deer fawns or disturbing wildlife is almost impossible to tell from the outside, and checks at dusk practically never take place. In Germany, the German Hunting Association has merely recommended to its members that drones not be used to drive or disturb game; that is not a binding limit. The history of hunting technology shows that voluntary restraint cannot be relied upon.

More on this: Dossier on Hunting in Switzerland: Figures, Systems and Myths and Alternatives to recreational hunting: what really helps, without killing animals

Digital Lure Calls: Deception as a System

Digital lure calls imitate the sounds of prey animals, conspecifics, or young animals in distress with high precision. They are played through Bluetooth speakers and can attract animals from hundreds of metres away. The fox that follows a digital mouse's death cry has no way of recognising that it is a trap. The roebuck that reacts to the cry of a fawn in distress, wanting to protect its young from supposed danger, is killed at precisely the moment it acts on its protective instinct. This is not hunting on equal terms. It is the systematic exploitation of instincts that are millions of years old and were never designed to withstand a loudspeaker.

In Switzerland, electronic sound-playback devices for luring animals are prohibited under federal law (Art. 2 para. 1 lit. e JSV), yet barely monitored. Digital lure-call devices with hundreds of stored animal sounds are freely available in online shops, including the calls of protected species. Checking whether a recreational hunter in the field is using a digital lure call is practically impossible. What is not monitored takes place.

The recreational hunting community justifies digital lure calls as a "nature-based instrument", arguing that recreational hunters used lure instruments in the past too. The comparison does not hold: a mouth-blown reed instrument requires skill, produces a limited sound range and is anything but precise. A digital device with a GPS speaker and 300 stored animal calls in HD quality is the opposite of nature-based. It is the use of consumer technology against animals that have no chance of recognising the difference.

More on this: Hunting myths: 12 claims you should scrutinise critically and Recreational hunters and their delight in animal cruelty

Switzerland's Patchwork: Regulation Without Enforcement

What particularly distinguishes Switzerland when it comes to hunting technology is its complete regulatory inconsistency. Cantonal sovereignty over hunting law means that, for the same technology, up to 26 different rules can exist across 26 cantons. Thermal imaging cameras are banned in the canton of Valais at the initiative of the recreational hunting community, permitted for observation in the canton of Bern, and not mentioned at all in other cantons. Night-sighting devices are banned under federal law but are readmitted through cantonal exemption permits under Art. 3 JSV, for instance in the canton of Solothurn. Digital lure calls are banned under federal law, but enforcement remains cantonal and patchy.

Enforcement is structurally almost impossible. Game wardens are thinly spread, hunting grounds are vast, and the darkness in which night hunting takes place offers recreational hunters additional cover. Checking whether a shot was fired at night using a thermal imaging scope is practically impossible without a real-time recording of the offence at the scene. The result is a legal situation that exists on paper but, in practice, effectively tolerates technological escalation.

At federal level, the Federal Council sees no need for action: in its reply to Interpellation 25.3278 in June 2025, it described the current rules as appropriate. As long as there is no federal regulation on thermal imaging devices, the protection of wild animals from technological overpowering is left to the goodwill of individual cantonal associations. That is not a system. That is chance.

More on this: template texts for hunting-critical motions in cantonal parliaments and Dossier on Hunting in Switzerland: Figures, Systems and Myths

The Fairytale of Fair Chase

Recreational hunting publicly justifies itself through tradition, a connection to nature, and the principle of giving game a fair chance. The term «Waidgerechtigkeit» (fair chase ethics) is central to this: it suggests a respectful approach to wild animals, an ethical stance that distinguishes recreational hunting from mere intent to kill. The technological reality disproves this narrative on every level.

Thermal imaging cameras allow animals to be tracked down even before daybreak, stripping them of the night as a place of refuge. Night vision devices enable shots to be fired in complete darkness, turning follow-up searches into hours-long death throes. Drones flush game out of safe hiding places for which there is no evolutionary defence strategy. Digital lures exploit protective instincts and mating reflexes that are hundreds of thousands of years old. Not a single one of these tools has anything to do with tradition or a connection to nature. They all have one thing in common: they maximise the advantage for humans and reduce the wild animal's chance of survival to zero.

The canton of Geneva has shown since 1974 that wildlife management works without any form of recreational hunting; Luxembourg abolished fox hunting in 2015. Those who hunt animals with military technology have forfeited the right to invoke tradition and fair-chase ethics.

More on this: Geneva and the hunting ban: 50 years without recreational hunting and Hunting ban Switzerland: Why an end to recreational hunting is overdue

What needs to change

• A federal ban without a cantonal back door: Night-vision scopes are prohibited under federal law, but the cantons can grant exemption permits (Art. 3 JSV). These exemptions must be scrapped, and handheld thermal imaging devices must also be banned at federal level, so that a uniform basis exists across Switzerland and enforcement becomes possible.
• Enforce the drone ban consistently: Since 2025, drones have been prohibited for hunting under federal law (Art. 2 para. 1 let. o JSV). The exemption for fawn rescue must not become a back door: deployments must be reported and documented, and violations prosecuted consistently.
• Enforce the ban on digital game calls: The use of digital sound devices to lure wild animals is prohibited under federal law; the ban must be monitored and violations sanctioned with the withdrawal of hunting authorisation. Online trade in such devices cannot be prevented, but their use in public and private hunting areas must carry penalties.
• Mandatory reporting of night-time kills and follow-up searches: Every kill carried out at night must be reported, including the start of the follow-up search and its outcome. This would, for the first time, make it possible to statistically record the true extent of animals that die without being found.
• Mandatory training for the use of new technologies: Anyone wishing to use thermal imaging devices for observation, where permitted, must provide proof of training in safely identifying animals. This would reduce mistaken kills of protected species.
• Transparency obligation for the hunting lobby:Manufacturers and dealers of hunting technology must be obliged to report sales figures to the authorities. Only in this way can the spread of new technologies be regulated in a timely manner. Template motions: Template texts for hunting-critical motions and Parlament.ch: Interpellation 25.3278 and the Federal Council's reply on night-vision devices

Talking points

«Thermal imaging devices make hunting safer because they prevent mis-kills.» The opposite has been proven: determining the species and sex of an animal at temperatures close to zero, where thermal signatures are similar, is prone to error. Moreover, the supposed precision encourages shots that would not be risked in daylight. Wildtierschutz Deutschland documents increasing mis-kills of protected species involving the use of thermal imaging devices.

«Night hunting is necessary to regulate wild boar populations.» The claim that more kills would permanently reduce the wild boar population is scientifically untenable. Studies show that wild boars compensate for losses through increased reproduction. The real cause of the pressure from wild boars (intensive farming, maize monocultures, a lack of predators) is not eliminated by night hunting but merely masked.

“Drones save fawns, surely that is a positive thing.” The use of drones to save fawns from mowing machines is explicitly to be welcomed. That does not change the fact that the same technology is used as a hunting tool to flush out and drive game. Defending both at the same time is a double standard at the expense of wild animals.

“Recreational hunters used digital game calls in the past too, there is nothing new about it.” A mouth-blown roe deer call and a Bluetooth speaker with 300 stored HD animal sounds differ so fundamentally that the comparison does not hold. The decisive difference is not the intention but the effect: digital lure calls are so precise and far-reaching that the animal has no way of recognising the imitation. This is not traditional craft, but the use of technology against an animal that is structurally at a disadvantage.

“Recreational hunting regulates itself, Valais proves it.” Valais shows the opposite: self-regulation only worked once the pressure on wildlife had already become so high that recreational hunters themselves reacted. Relying on voluntary restraint without a legal framework is irresponsible from an animal welfare policy perspective.

“Technology is value-neutral; what matters is how it is used.” Technology is not value-neutral when it creates asymmetric power relationships. Between a wild animal reliant on evolutionary instincts and a recreational hunter equipped with a thermal imaging scope, a drone and a digital lure call, there is no longer any contest. There is an execution.

Quick links

Articles on Wild beim Wild:

• “Common practice in hunting circles”: night-time kills with thermal imaging cameras go to court
• Suspected poaching in the Parco del Ticino: police seize 46 firearms, silencers and night-vision optics
• Cruel hunting methods: tolerated and promoted
• Recreational hunters and their delight in animal cruelty
• Hunting and animal cruelty
• Switzerland hunts, but why still?
• Initiative calls for «Game wardens instead of hunters»
• Zurich: first canton to ban alcohol for recreational hunters
• template texts for hunting-critical motions in cantonal parliaments

Related dossiers:

• Hunting and Wildlife Diseases
• Night hunting and high-tech: the myth of fair hunting
• Hunting Dogs: Use, Suffering and Animal Welfare
• Lead ammunition: the toxic legacy of recreational hunting
• High hunt Switzerland: Traditional ritual and stress test
• Swine fever as a justification for recreational hunting
• Hunting Accidents in Switzerland
• Hunting and Animal Welfare: What the Practice Does to Wild Animals
• Hunting and Weapons
• Driven Hunt in Switzerland
• Wait Hunting: Waiting, Technology and Risks
• Earth hunting
• Trap hunting
• Wait hunting
• Special Hunt in Grisons
• Swiss Hunting Statistics 2025: What the Federal Figures Show
• Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland: Systematic impunity and the limits of self-control

Our Standard

Wild animals are not targets. The technological arms race in recreational hunting is not progress but a capitulation to the principle of proportionality: what had remained wild animals' only refuge (the night, the thicket, instinct) is being systematically undermined by thermal imaging cameras, drones and digital calls. The Swiss legal situation is an uncontrollable patchwork that comes at the expense of wild animals. Recreational hunters present themselves as nature-loving and fair-chase, but anyone who hunts animals with military-grade precision technology has forfeited the right to that narrative. This dossier is updated continuously as new data, legal developments or technical trends require.

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