Wolf: ecological function and political reality

The wolf is not a problem animal but an ecosystem architect. As an apex predator, it regulates ungulate populations, alters the behaviour of its prey and triggers ecological chain reactions that extend from forest regeneration to riparian vegetation and the biodiversity of entire habitats. These connections are scientifically documented, internationally recognised and, in Switzerland, politically largely irrelevant. Swiss wolf policy is guided not by ecology but by the interests of a recreational hunting lobby that sees in the wolf, above all, a competitor.

This dossier brings together the ecological research on the wolf, from trophic cascades and carcass ecology to forest regeneration, and confronts it with the political reality in Switzerland. It shows why the return of the wolf is a gain for biodiversity, and why the kill policy is based not on science but on the management of fear and on conflicts of interest. All the evidence is presented in a way that allows it to be used in parliamentary motions, media discussions and public debates.

What awaits you here

Trophic cascades: How the wolf, as an apex predator, shapes entire ecosystems from the top down. Yellowstone as a benchmark, European research and the question of what this means for Switzerland.
Selective predation: Why the wolf strengthens the fitness of prey populations by preferentially taking sick, old and weak individuals, and how this differs from recreational hunting.
Carcass ecology: How wolf kills create a food source for scavengers, insects, fungi and plants, and broaden the food web.
Forest regeneration and reduced browsing damage: Why the wolf matters more to Switzerland's protection forests than any kill regime, and what research on the landscape of fear shows.
Self-regulation: Why wolves regulate their population density themselves through territorial behaviour, pack structure and food supply, and why politically set "target figures" have no ecological basis.
Shyness towards humans: What research says about wolf behaviour towards humans and why the risk is statistically negligible.
Political reality in Switzerland: How the ecological function of the wolf is systematically ignored in the political debate and which interests lie behind this.
The competition narratives of recreational hunting: Why recreational hunters perceive the wolf as a threat and how this narrative distorts wildlife policy.
What would need to change: 6 demands for a wildlife policy that takes ecological evidence seriously.
Argumentation guide: Answers to the most common objections to the wolf's ecological role.
Quick links: All relevant articles, studies and dossiers.

Trophic cascades: the wolf as ecosystem architect

Trophic cascades describe an ecological process in which changes at the top of the food chain affect all the levels beneath it. The wolf is the best-known example of this top-down effect: as an apex predator, it influences not only the population size of its prey but also their behaviour, which in turn ripples through vegetation, soils, watercourses and other animal species.

The most prominent case study is Yellowstone National Park. After the last wolf was exterminated in 1926, elk populations exploded uncontrollably, leading to massive browsing damage and the destruction of riparian vegetation. After the reintroduction of 31 wolves in 1995 and 1996, researchers led by William J. Ripple (Oregon State University) documented a remarkable recovery: willows, aspens, alders and berry-bearing shrubs grew back, shading of the riverbanks increased, aquatic life recovered, erosion declined and even the morphology of the rivers changed. Ripple's comparative study (Global Ecology and Conservation, 2025) shows that the canopy volume of willows increased by around 1,500 per cent over 20 years, and the strength of this cascade exceeds 82 per cent of all trophic cascades quantified worldwide.

The research is not uncritical: ecologists such as Arthur Middleton and Oswald Schmitz point out that not all areas of Yellowstone show the same recovery, and that factors such as climate change, bear density and historical soil damage overlay the effects. David Mech, one of the world's leading wolf experts, warns against the 'canonisation' of the wolf as the sole saviour of the ecosystem. This nuance matters: trophic cascades are real and well documented, but their strength varies from ecosystem to ecosystem, and no single predator can undo decades of human landscape destruction.

For Switzerland, this means that the return of the wolf has the potential to reduce browsing damage in forests, promote forest regeneration and strengthen biodiversity in mountain ecosystems. This potential will only be realised, however, if the wolf is not systematically decimated before it can become ecologically effective.

More on this: Hunting and biodiversity: Does hunting really protect nature? and The cultivated landscape as myth

Selective predation: why the wolf strengthens prey populations

One of the best-documented features of wolf predation is its selectivity. Wolves 'test' their prey by chasing it briefly and observing the reaction. Flight speed, condition and behavioural patterns tell the pack whether an individual is healthy or weakened. The result: wolves take a disproportionate share of young, old, sick and weakened animals.

This selective mechanism has far-reaching consequences. In the short term, the average fitness of the prey population rises, because the least viable individuals are removed. In the long term, natural selection takes effect: animals that escape wolf predation pass on their ability to flee, their vigilance and their condition to their offspring.

Recreational hunting works the other way round. Recreational hunters do not choose the weakest individuals but the most visible, the largest and often the genetically most valuable: the prime red deer stag with the large antlers, the chamois on the rocky ledge, the roebuck in his best years. Studies such as Darimont et al. (2015, Science) show that human 'predation' decimates prey populations on average far more heavily than natural predators do, while selectively removing the strongest individuals. The result is an evolutionary reversal: instead of promoting fitness, recreational hunting selects for inconspicuousness and small body size.

In Switzerland this difference is particularly relevant: in cantons with high hunts and a trophy-oriented approach, the genetically most valuable individuals are systematically shot. The wolf would do the opposite. The recreational hunting lobby's refusal to acknowledge precisely this ecological function has a simple reason: a wolf that takes the weak animals competes directly with recreational hunters, who lay claim to the strong ones.

More on this: High Hunt in Switzerland: Traditional Ritual, Zone of Violence and Stress Test for Wild Animals and Hunting myths: 12 claims you should scrutinise critically

Carrion ecology: how wolf kills expand the food web

Wolves rarely eat their prey completely. The remains – bones, offal, hide and scraps of meat – become a food source for a wide range of other species. Carrion ecology is a research field in its own right, and it shows how profound the effects of a single wolf kill can be on the surrounding ecosystem.

In Yellowstone, researchers documented that wolf kills are regularly used by scavengers such as ravens, bald eagles, magpies, coyotes and even grizzly bears. Raven populations alone benefited significantly from the reintroduction of wolves. But the cascade goes further: insects colonise the carcasses, bacteria and fungi break down the organic material, and the nutrients released enrich the soil and promote plant growth in the immediate surroundings.

In Switzerland this function is particularly relevant for alpine ecosystems, where carrion is naturally scarce. Since the extermination of predators in the 19th century, alpine scavenger communities – golden eagles, bearded vultures, ravens, red foxes – have lacked a regular food source other than human waste. The wolf brings this food source back. This is not a side effect but an ecological function that directly strengthens biodiversity.

By comparison: an animal shot by recreational hunters is carried away, gutted and used. The entire biomass is removed from the ecosystem. An animal killed by a wolf stays where it fell and feeds the local food web. The ecological difference between recreational hunting and wolf predation is fundamental on this level too.

More on this: Hunting and Wildlife Diseases and Wildlife corridors and habitat connectivity

Forest regeneration, browsing damage and the landscape of fear

In Switzerland, forest regeneration is a central political issue. Particularly in protection forests, which shield settlements, roads and railway lines from avalanches, rockfall and debris flows, excessive browsing damage by ungulates has caused serious problems for decades: young trees are eaten before they can grow, and the forest's natural regeneration fails to take place. The costs of artificial reforestation and browsing protection run to millions every year.

Research on the «Landscape of Fear» shows why the wolf can make a decisive contribution to solving this problem. In the presence of wolves, red deer, roe deer and chamois change how they use space: they avoid areas where the risk of predation is high (dense vegetation, stream beds, steep slopes) and spend less time at individual feeding sites. This effect, known as «ecological fear», reduces browsing pressure without a single animal having to be killed.

Studies from Yellowstone, the Polish Carpathians and the Swiss National Park show that this behavioural effect is often stronger than the pure population effect: even when the total number of red deer remains constant, browsing pressure falls because the animals distribute themselves differently and feed less intensively in any one place.

For Swiss protection forest policy, this would be a paradigm shift: instead of shooting around 13,600 red deer and 42,500 roe deer every year (Federal Hunting Statistics 2025) and still having browsing problems, the presence of wolf packs in protection forest areas could reduce browsing pressure without taxpayers' money and without recreational violence. The fact that this connection barely features in the political debate is not due to a lack of evidence, but to a lack of willingness to draw the consequences: if the wolf protects the forest better than recreational hunting does, recreational hunting loses its last ecological justification.

More on this: Special Hunt in Grisons and Alternatives to recreational hunting

Self-regulation: why wolves need no political target figures

Wolves regulate their population density through a complex system of territorial behaviour, pack structure and reproductive adaptation. A wolf pack claims a territory of 100 to 300 square kilometres, which it defends against other packs. Within the pack, usually only the alpha pair reproduces; the other members help with rearing the young or disperse to found territories of their own.

Once the available territory and food supply are exhausted, population growth stagnates: young wolves find no vacant territories, the reproduction rate falls, and natural mortality (territorial fights, disease, road traffic, lack of food) offsets the birth rate. This mechanism is documented in wolves worldwide and works without any human intervention.

In Switzerland, the KORA foundation recorded 350 wolves in 43 packs in 2025. The politically set 'target figure' in Valais (a reduction from 11 to 3 packs, Darbellay) has no ecological basis. It serves not wildlife management but acceptance politics towards the recreational hunting and agricultural lobby. The wolf regulates itself if it is allowed to. What it does not regulate are political fears and economic interests, but that is what herd protection is for, not killing.

The JSG revision passed by Parliament in December 2022 has made possible, since December 2023, the 'proactive regulation' of packs, including the killing of up to two thirds of the young wolves, the so-called basic regulation. The previous revision had been rejected by the electorate on 27 September 2020. Ecologically this is counterproductive: removing young wolves destabilises the pack structure, leads to the dissolution of family groups and increases the likelihood that surviving individuals will disperse and cause conflicts in new areas. Sweden has had this experience and halted licence hunting of wolves following court rulings in 2026.

More on this: Wolf in Switzerland: facts, politics and the limits of hunting and Valais wolf balance sheet: figures of a massacre

Shyness towards humans: what research actually shows

In the last 50 years there has been no fatal wolf attack on a human in Western Europe. The risk of being killed by a dog, a cow, a horse or a lightning strike is many times higher. Studies on the wolf's shyness towards humans show that wolves have a deeply ingrained avoidance response towards people.

Behavioural studies document that wolves react to recordings of human voices with stronger flight responses than to dogs barking. Telemetry data show that wolves systematically avoid human settlements and heavily frequented paths, especially during the day. The research wolf 'Andrea' in Carinthia (GPS collar, University of Udine, a project worth 250,000 euros, documented from February 2026) is providing further data on space use in landscapes shaped by humans.

The political narrative of the “problem wolf” that approaches people and threatens settlements contradicts this data. What is classified as “conspicuous behaviour” is, as a rule, simply the presence of a wolf in an area that is also used by people. In a densely settled cultural landscape such as Switzerland, sightings are unavoidable, and unavoidable does not mean dangerous.

The 2008 Wolf Concept Switzerland defined damage thresholds (25 kills per month or 35 kills over four months) above which culls could be authorised. Today, the Hunting Ordinance sets the threshold for a lone wolf at six sheep or goats killed within four months (Art. 9b JSV). These thresholds relate to livestock losses, not to danger to humans. The blurring of livestock protection and the protection of people in political rhetoric is a deliberate strategy of fear management.

More on this: Herd protection in Switzerland and Media and hunting topics

Political reality vs. ecological evidence

Swiss wolf policy is not based on ecology but on a political compromise between the farming lobby, recreational hunting associations and an administration that gives greater weight to avoiding conflict than to scientific evidence. The wolf's ecological function – trophic cascades, reduced browsing damage, carcass ecology, strengthening of populations – appears in no message from the Federal Council, no JagdSchweiz consultation response and no cantonal kill order.

In Valais, 27 wolves were killed between June 2025 and January 2026, with the Chablais, Salentin and Simplon packs removed entirely and 7 young wolves shot under baseline regulation. 13,390 working hours and an estimated CHF 0.8 to 1 million went into wolf management and regulation in 2025 (Valais wolf report). At the same time, not a single franc was invested in researching the ecological effects of the wolf on Valais protection forests. The canton of Grisons shot 35 wolves in the 2025/26 period. Nationwide, according to the FOEN, 92 wolves were killed pre-emptively in the 2024/25 regulation period and a further 77 in 2025/26. We are continuously documenting the current 2026/27 period wolf counter.

In October 2024, the Bern Convention explicitly stated that preventive kills without concrete proof of damage are illegal. In December 2024, the Council of Europe unanimously opened an investigation against Switzerland. The EU's 2025 downgrading of wolf protection was criticised by more than 700 scientists as “premature and flawed”, and the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe (LCIE) described the measure as scientifically unjustified.

The political reality shows a clear pattern: ecological evidence is systematically ignored when it contradicts the narrative of culling. The question is not whether the wolf is ecologically valuable; research has answered that question. The question is whether Swiss politics is prepared to place evidence above lobby interests.

More on this: How hunting associations influence policy and the public and Hunter lobby in Switzerland: how influence works

The Competition Narratives of Recreational Hunting

Why does the recreational hunting lobby react so vehemently to the return of the wolf? The ecological answer is simple: the wolf is a natural competitor of the recreational hunter. Both lay claim to the same prey animals – red deer, roe deer, chamois, wild boars – but with opposite selection patterns and opposite ecological effects.

Recreational hunters shoot the strongest and most visible animals; the wolf takes the weakest. Recreational hunters remove biomass from the ecosystem; the wolf leaves it where it falls. Recreational hunters hunt seasonally and within fixed hunting grounds; the wolf hunts year-round and territorially. In areas where wolf packs become established, experience shows that recreational hunters' bags decline, because ungulates become more cautious, retreat into harder-to-reach areas and shift their periods of activity.

For recreational hunters, whose self-image depends on kill figures, trophies and the story of the “necessary regulator”, this is an existential threat. If the wolf takes over regulation, the core justification for recreational hunting falls away. That is why JagdSchweiz's communications frame the wolf not as an ecosystem actor but as a “damage-causer” and a “problem animal”, and why the lobby invests more in the political fight against the wolf than in ecological research into its function.

The cantonal initiative «Wolf fertig, lustig!» of 2016, which was endorsed by the ENVI committee (UREK) and branded an «eradication push» by Pro Natura, illustrates this dynamic: it was never about livestock kills (for which herd protection exists), but about control over habitat.

More on this: The psychology of hunting and Fox hunting without facts: How JagdSchweiz invents problems

What needs to change

Scientific monitoring of ecological impacts: In no Swiss canton are the ecological effects of wolf presence systematically studied. A long-term monitoring programme financed by the FOEN (BAFU) is needed, documenting browsing damage trends, vegetation structure, scavenger populations and species diversity in wolf areas and comparing them with control areas without wolf packs.
Ecological expertise in wolf policy: Kill orders are issued by cantonal hunting administrations that have neither ecologists nor population biologists. Every regulation decision must be based on an independent ecological assessment that evaluates the impact on pack structure and on the wolf's ecological function.
Abolition of political target figures: Setting a «desired» number of wolf packs (Darbellay: 11→3) has no ecological basis. Population targets must be guided by conservation status and ecological carrying capacity, not by the political acceptance of the recreational hunting lobby.
Integrating the wolf into the protection forest strategy: The wolf must be recognised in cantonal and federal protection forest concepts as an ecological reducer of browsing damage. As long as protection forests cost millions in artificial reforestation while the natural regulator is being shot, policy remains ecologically inconsistent.
Herd protection before kills: No kill without documented proof that all reasonable herd protection measures have been exhausted. The 2008 Wolf Concept for Switzerland provides for this; practice systematically ignores it.
Transparency on mistaken kills and pack impacts: The mistaken kills of 2022 (the Marchairuz lead wolf, the Moesola alpha male, the unauthorised wolf in Valais) must be fully investigated. Every kill must be documented with a follow-up analysis of pack stability and ecological impacts.

Template submissions: Template texts for hunting-critical motions and Template letter: Appeal for change in Switzerland

Talking points

«The wolf has no place in densely populated Switzerland.» The wolf lived in Europe for millennia, including in densely populated regions. France, Italy, Germany and Spain prove that wolves can exist in cultural landscapes. Switzerland is no more densely populated than parts of northern Italy or southern Germany, where packs are established. The question is not whether there is enough space, but whether the political will for coexistence exists.

“Wolves do not regulate themselves, they multiply uncontrollably.” Wolf populations demonstrably regulate themselves through territorial behaviour, reproductive adaptation and natural mortality. “Uncontrolled multiplication” is not documented in any European country. What is presented as an “increase” is the natural spread into available habitat of a species that was previously exterminated. Once territories are occupied, the population stabilises.

“The wolf endangers the wildlife population and recreational hunting.” The wolf changes the population structure and behaviour of ungulates; it does not wipe them out. In areas with wolf packs, hunting bags fall because the animals become more cautious, not because they disappear. That recreational hunting perceives this as a threat only confirms the competition motive: it is not about ecology, but about leisure interests.

“The Yellowstone findings cannot be transferred to Europe.” Trophic cascades are not confined to Yellowstone. Studies from the Polish Carpathians, the Italian Apennines, the Scandinavian boreal forest and the Swiss National Park document comparable effects. The strength varies, but the principle is universal: apex predators shape ecosystems from the top down, and their absence leaves gaps that no recreational hunting can fill.

“The wolf is not endangered, it has to be regulated.” A species' favourable conservation status is a legal prerequisite for any regulatory measure. In Switzerland, this status has not been reached for the wolf. The Bern Convention and the Council of Europe have classed Swiss regulation practice as legally problematic. Over 700 scientists criticised the EU downgrading. Anyone who says “regulate” and means “decimate” should know the difference.

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Our Standard

This dossier does not set out to glorify the wolf as a miracle animal. What it does aim to do is summarise the ecological research showing why the wolf is valuable for Swiss biodiversity, the forest and the ecological balance, and to set that research against a political reality that systematically ignores these findings. The Yellowstone research is no fairy tale, and trophic cascades are not wishful thinking. But neither are they automatic: for the wolf to fulfil its ecological function, it must be allowed to live. A policy that kills 92 wolves in a single regulation period and 77 in the next, while claiming to protect species, is scientifically not credible.

Anyone who knows of studies, data or observations on the ecological function of the wolf in Switzerland, please write to us. Particularly sought: documentation on the development of browsing damage in wolf territories, sightings of scavengers at wolf kills, and long-term data on the distribution of ungulates.

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