Badger Switzerland: Ecosystem engineer in the crosshairs

The badger is the largest member of the mustelid family in Switzerland. It lives in family groups, digs complex burrow systems, aerates the forest floor and regulates insect populations. Nevertheless, according to the Federal Hunting Statistics, recreational hunters shot 3,166 badgers in 2025, a further 883 were killed in special culls, and 3,365 died in road traffic (Swiss Hunting Statistics 2025). An animal that nobody wants to use and that even the Basel-Landschaft hunting administration describes as "not a sought-after trophy" continues to be killed out of habit.

Profile

The European badger (Meles meles) belongs to the mustelid family (Mustelidae) and is its largest representative in Central Europe. It reaches a body length of up to 90 centimetres (of which around 15 centimetres is tail) and, depending on the season, weighs between 10 and 18 kilograms. In autumn, badgers build up a layer of fat weighing several kilograms, which they live off during their winter rest. Its most striking feature is the black-and-white facial marking: two broad black stripes run from the nose across the eyes to the ears. The upper body is silvery grey, the underside black. Its stocky build, with short, powerful legs and long claws on the forepaws, reveals its way of life as a master builder.

Biology and Social Structure

The badger is one of the most social of the mustelids. It lives in family groups, known as clans, which can consist of 2 to 20 animals sharing a single sett (Stadtwildtiere Schweiz). Badger pairs stay together for life. In early spring, the sow (the female) usually gives birth to 2 to 3 cubs, rarely up to 6. The cubs are born blind and white. The black facial stripes only develop in the later months of life. A peculiarity of badger biology is delayed implantation: the fertilised egg only implants in the uterus after a delay of several months, so that birth always falls in spring.

The population grows slowly. After population crashes, caused for instance by epidemics, the badger needs many years to recover. In the wild, badgers rarely live beyond 10 years; in captivity they can reach up to 15 years of age.

The badger sett: a multi-generational project

The burrow systems of the badger are among the most impressive animal constructions in Swiss fauna. A badger sett can be used for decades, in some cases for centuries, and is extended by each generation. One sett studied in England comprised 50 chambers and 178 entrances, linked by a total of 879 metres of tunnels (Wikipedia, European badger). The setts reach depths of up to 5 metres. Unlike the fox, the badger lines its sleeping chamber with dry leaves, moss or bracken, and digs its own latrines at some distance to keep the sett clean (Waldwissen.net, Badgers in the canton of Lucerne).

These burrow systems matter not only to badgers. Foxes, rabbits and numerous insect species use abandoned or side chambers of badger setts as shelter. The badger is thus an ecosystem engineer whose building activity benefits other species.

Diet and ecological function

The badger is an opportunistic omnivore with a strong preference for earthworms. In addition, it eats insects, larvae (especially cockchafer grubs), snails, mice, fruit, berries, nuts and field crops (Waldwissen.net, canton of Aargau). It is not an active hunter but a forager, searching the ground for food by rooting and digging. Around three quarters of its total diet consists of plant matter (Umweltberatung Luzern).

The ecological function of the badger is systematically ignored in public debate. Through its digging, it aerates the forest floor, promotes the mixing of soil layers and contributes to the dispersal of plant seeds. As a consumer of cockchafer grubs, mice and snails, it acts as a natural pest regulator in agriculture and forestry. Its benefit to the ecosystem is considerable, yet it is never factored into the cost-benefit calculation of recreational hunting.

Hunting: tradition without justification

Legal situation

Under the Federal Act on Hunting (JSG, Art. 5 para. 1 let. i), the badger is a huntable species. It is classed as so-called small-game hunting, together with the red fox and the stone and pine marten. Under federal law the closed season runs from 16 January to 15 June; hunting is therefore permitted from 16 June to 15 January, i.e. for seven months of the year. The cantons may extend the closed season or remove the badger from the list of huntable species (Art. 5 para. 4 JSG). In Grisons and Valais, the 2026/27 badger hunt ends on 15 January; Valais pays a bounty of 20 francs for every badger killed (small game hunting 2026).

The scale of the killing

According to the Swiss Federal Hunting Statistics, 3,166 badgers were shot in Switzerland in 2025, and every year since 2016 between roughly 2,800 and 3,800. In addition, there were 883 special kills. A further 4,499 badgers were found dead in 2025, of which 3,365 were victims of road traffic and 337 of rail traffic. In total, more than 8,500 dead badgers are therefore recorded for 2025 (Swiss Hunting Statistics 2025). Alongside road traffic, shooting is thus the most frequently recorded cause of death of the badger in Switzerland.

Particularly striking: in individual cantons the kill figures periodically explode. In the canton of Basel-Landschaft, kills rose within a short time from a long-term average of 80 to 200 animals to over 350 animals a year (BZ Basel, 2017); in 2017 the Swiss Federal Hunting Statistics recorded 431, in 2025 still 262. The cantonal hunting administrator explained: “How many badgers are killed depends on the commitment of the hunters”, and admitted that badgers are “no coveted trophy” and “cannot be utilised”. They “normally end up entirely in the carcass collection point” (BZ Basel, 2017). In the canton of Grisons, the municipality of Laax paid a bounty of 40 francs for every badger killed (IG Wild beim Wild, 2020).

In the canton of Geneva, where recreational hunting has been abolished since 1974, the Swiss Federal Hunting Statistics for 2025 list a single badger killed by the wildlife wardens; from 2016 to 2025 there were never more than 4 a year. In the canton of Schaffhausen, recreational hunters shot 61 badgers in 2025, in Aargau 538 and in Lucerne 437 (Swiss Hunting Statistics 2025). This comparison shows by way of example: the badger is not shot because it is necessary, but because it happens to be in the hunting ground and recreational hunters are looking for kills.

Hunting methods and animal welfare

In Switzerland, badger hunting takes place predominantly as wait hunting at the sett in the late twilight and at night. Since 1 February 2025, night hunting in forests has been banned under federal law, with the exception of wait hunting; the cantons may provide for exceptions (Art. 3^ter JSV). In Grisons, for example, wait hunting for foxes, badgers and martens runs from 17.00 to 06.30 in each case (small game hunting 2026). In some cantons, badgers are still hunted with earth dogs (dachshunds, terriers), which are sent into the sett to drive the animals out. Under federal law, only gassing and smoking out, digging out badgers and using more than one dog per sett are prohibited (Art. 2 para. 1 let. c JSV). Thurgau, Vaud, Zurich and Basel-Landschaft have banned or largely restricted earth hunting, and Bern has decided on an extensive ban (Earth hunting dossier). The Swiss Animal Protection STS calls for a nationwide ban on earth hunting, as it involves extreme fear for both animal species concerned and constitutes animal cruelty (STS, Hunting in Switzerland).

For the badger, the sett is a place of refuge that, under natural conditions, no enemies enter. Earth hunting destroys this elementary need for safety. That recreational hunters send dogs into the sett of a formidable animal weighing up to 18 kilograms cannot be justified ethically and regularly results in serious bite injuries to the dogs deployed.

More on this: Animal welfare problem: wild animals suffer agonising deaths because of recreational hunters

The rabies story: how the badger became collateral damage

Gassing and population collapse

In the 1970s and 1980s, the badger population in Switzerland was massively decimated, not because the animals themselves were suffering from rabies, but because they lived in the same setts as the red fox, which was regarded as the main carrier of rabies. As part of rabies control, fox dens were treated with gas. Because badgers and foxes often share sett systems, badgers died in large numbers as collateral damage (Canton of Aargau, Umweltberatung Lucerne).

Rabies has been considered eradicated in Switzerland since 1999. It was defeated not by gassing and not by recreational hunting, but by animal-friendly vaccine baits that were distributed over large areas. The Swiss Rabies Centre has expressly stated that reducing fox populations through hunting is not possible as a means of rabies control and is even counterproductive (IG Wild beim Wild, 2020). The badger thus paid a high price for a control strategy that proved to be wrong.

The recovery

After the collapse caused by rabies control, the badger population has slowly recovered over recent decades. The rising hunting bag and the growing number of badgers killed on the roads point to an increase in numbers (canton of Aargau). An exact population count is not possible for badgers because of their nocturnal way of life. That recreational hunters are now using the population increase as a justification for more kills is cynical: they decimated the population in the first place through gassing, and now that it has recovered they want to hunt it again.

The damage argument: exaggerated and disproportionate

Agricultural damage

The main argument for badger hunting is that the badger causes damage to agricultural crops, particularly maize, grapes and berry crops. It also digs up gardens and, through its burrowing, can destabilise embankments or slopes. This damage is real, but modest in scale and locally limited.

The canton of Aargau notes that the badger can cause game damage «similar to wild boars». But the comparison with the wild boar is misleading: while wild boars can plough up fields over large areas, badger damage is limited to small-scale rooting and occasional feeding. On its nocturnal forays, a badger rarely strays more than 1,600 metres from its sett (Waldwissen.net, Badgers in the canton of Lucerne). Its damage can therefore be clearly confined to a given area and prevented with simple, animal-friendly means.

Animal-friendly alternatives

Low-lying, two-strand electric fences around maize or berry fields reliably keep badgers away. This protective measure is inexpensive, effective immediately and makes killing unnecessary. Other deterrents such as scent repellents, flashing lights or motion sensors can be used in built-up areas. That recreational hunters nevertheless promote killing as the first and often only measure is not due to a lack of alternatives, but to the self-image of a hunting culture that sees killing animals as the standard solution to every problem.

What the damage argument leaves out

The economic damage caused by badgers bears no relation to the costs and suffering that hunting them entails. The ecological benefits of the badger as a soil aerator, seed disperser and natural pest regulator are not taken into account in any cantonal damage calculation. When a badger eats grubs and mice, it saves farmers the cost of plant protection products. When it digs through and aerates the forest floor, forest regeneration benefits. These positive contributions are never accounted for, because they would undermine the narrative of the badger as a 'troublemaker'.

More on this: Why recreational hunting fails as population control

The badger and its predators: natural enemies instead of shotgun blasts

The badger's only natural enemies are the wolf, lynx, brown bear and humans (Umweltberatung Luzern). In large parts of Switzerland, the first three are still absent. The return of the wolf could, in the long term, also help to regulate badger populations naturally, but the badger is not a focus of wolf predation. Its main enemy is and remains traffic: in 2025, 3,365 badgers died on Swiss roads and 337 on railway lines (Federal Hunting Statistics).

The fragmentation of the landscape by roads and settlements is a greater threat to the badger than any agricultural conflict. Young animals crossing roads in search of a territory of their own are particularly at risk. Wildlife corridors and underpasses, such as those planned for red deer, also benefit the badger, but wildlife management concepts rarely take smaller species into account.

What needs to change

Abolition of small-game hunting of the badger: An animal that yields no trophy, is not used and ends up at the carcass collection point must not be hunted. Badger hunting has no reasonable justification within the meaning of the Animal Welfare Act (TSchG, Art. 4). What works in the canton of Geneva, with a maximum of 4 kills per year carried out by the wildlife wardens, must serve as the benchmark.
Nationwide ban on earth hunting: Earth hunting of badgers and foxes with dogs is an archaic form of hunting that constitutes animal cruelty. The Swiss Animal Protection STS calls for a ban. This demand must be enshrined in law.
Protection of badger setts: Badger setts are used over generations and are ecologically valuable structures. They must be recognised as habitats worthy of protection and shielded from destruction, filling-in and disturbance, in the same way as caves or nesting trees.
Promoting animal-friendly damage prevention: Electric fences around sensitive crops are the only proportionate measure against badger damage. The cantons must support farmers in purchasing and installing them, instead of issuing kill permits.
Reducing road mortality: More than 3,300 badgers died on Swiss roads in 2025. Small-animal underpasses, warning signs and speed limits at known badger crossing points must be implemented systematically.
Research and monitoring: There are no reliable population figures for badgers in Switzerland. A national monitoring programme using a standardised methodology, for example by counting occupied setts, is a prerequisite for an evidence-based protection strategy.

Talking points

“The badger causes damage to agricultural crops and must therefore be hunted.” The damage is real, but locally limited and can be reliably prevented with electric fences. Hunting is not a proportionate means, not least because it does not control the population but merely removes individual animals, whose territories are immediately taken over by neighbouring badgers. In the canton of Geneva, badger damage is dealt with through professional wildlife management and prevention, not through recreational hunters.

“The badger population has recovered and must be regulated.” The population has recovered after it had collapsed due to the senseless gassing carried out in the name of rabies control. That a species increases again after a man-made catastrophe is not an argument for renewed hunting, but a sign of functioning ecosystems. Badger populations regulate themselves through food availability and territorial structures.

“The badger belongs to small-game hunting and hunting it is a tradition.” Tradition is no argument for cruelty to animals. Small-game hunting of fox, badger, stone marten and pine marten has no scientific basis and serves primarily the leisure enjoyment of recreational hunters. The Swiss Animal Protection STS rightly demands that the purpose and justification of recreational hunting of these species be critically examined and that all animals be entitled to closed seasons.

“Without hunting, the badger will become a problem in built-up areas.” Badgers are moving into residential areas because they find food there, not because they are not hunted enough. The solution lies in removing food sources (open compost heaps, accessible waste bins, fallen fruit), not in killing them. Hunting in residential areas is hardly feasible anyway, as the cantonal authorities themselves admit. That badgers seek out the vicinity of settlements is an expression of their adaptability, not of overpopulation.

“Badgers cannot be utilised, yet killing them is necessary.” When an animal serves neither as food nor as a trophy and is disposed of entirely at the carcass collection point, there is no reasonable ground for killing it within the meaning of the Animal Welfare Act. The statement by the cantonal hunting administrator of Basel-Landschaft that badgers “cannot be utilised” and “normally end up entirely in the carcass collection point” exposes badger hunting for what it is: pointless killing without purpose.

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sources

Federal Hunting Statistics, BAFU/Wildtier Schweiz: http://www.jagdstatistik.ch (kills, special kills, fallen game and fallen game by cause 2016–2025, queried on 21.10.2026)
Canton of Aargau, Department of Construction, Transport and Environment: Badger profile (ag.ch)
Waldwissen.net/WSL: The badger in the canton of Lucerne (Holzgang/Muggli, 2005, updated)
Stadtwildtiere Schweiz/Wilde Nachbarn: Badger species profile (stadtwildtiere.ch)
Umweltberatung Luzern: Badger, from the forest into the city (umweltberatung-luzern.ch)
BZ Basel (2017): Hunting statistics, badgers in the sights of local hunters
IG Wild beim Wild (2020/2026): Fox massacre in Switzerland; Swiss hunting statistics 2025; small game hunting 2026; earth hunting dossier (wildbeimwild.com)
Swiss Animal Protection STS: Hunting in Switzerland, protecting wild animals and habitats (tierschutz.com)
Wikipedia: European badger (Meles meles)
Federal Act on Hunting and the Protection of Wild Mammals and Birds (JSG, SR 922.0) and Hunting Ordinance (JSV, SR 922.01), as at 1 February 2025
Animal Welfare Act (TSchG, SR 455)

Our Standard

The badger is an animal that lives in hiding and dies in hiding. Its setts, which have grown over generations and are ecologically valuable, are misused by recreational hunters as hunting opportunities. Its ecological contribution as a soil aerator, pest regulator and seed disperser appears in no hunting statistics. Instead, it is branded a «culprit», even though the damage it causes is locally limited and can be prevented with simple means. That after being shot the badger ends up entirely in the carcass collection point, because it cannot be used, makes the senselessness of hunting it especially clear. Killing an animal simply because one can is not wildlife management. It is the declaration of bankruptcy of a hunting culture that treats the kill as an end in itself. The small-game hunting of badgers must be abolished. What the canton of Geneva has been demonstrating for more than 50 years is the benchmark. This dossier is continually updated whenever new figures, studies or political developments require it.

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