Wolf Switzerland: facts, politics and the limits of hunting

The wolf is back in Switzerland, and with it a heated debate in which facts, emotions and lobbying interests intertwine. While part of the political establishment would prefer to return to blanket culling, researchers and animal welfare organisations point to international obligations, functioning herd protection models and the wolf's central ecological role.

This dossier brings together analyses, studies and investigations from wildbeimwild.com, placing them in the context of Swiss hunting policy, the Bern Convention and European wolf policy.

What awaits you here

Return of the wolf: population and distribution: Around 30 packs and 300 wolves in 2023 across the Alps, Pre-Alps and Jura, the Calanda pack as a success story, behavioural studies on shyness towards humans.
Political fault lines: who hunts the wolf? Valais wolf balance sheet 2025/2026, over 200 scientists opposing the hunting act classification, the cantonal initiative «Wolf fertig, lustig!», Darbellay and Regazzi as political actors.
Herd protection: what actually works: The Calanda model, costs of killing versus herd protection, 4'000 sheep lost annually to disease or falls versus 336 wolf kills, international role models.
Legal framework: Bern Convention and hunting act: Concept Wolf Switzerland 2008, JSG revision 2020, Bern Convention Oct 2024, Council of Europe inquiry proceedings Dec 2024, EU downgrading 2025.
Mistaken kills, young animals and ethics: Marchairuz/Moesola mistaken kills in 2022, basic regulation as systematic killing of young animals.
Mountain agriculture and structural conflicts: The wolf as a scapegoat for unresolved structural problems, direct payments, location policy.
Hunting lobby and lack of transparency: Valais as a case study: DJFW criticism 2016, the merging of recreational hunting and sovereign duties, the psychology of hunting culture.
International perspective: Europe in the wolf war: Sweden's licence hunting halted, research wolf «Andrea» in Carinthia, poaching in Poschiavo.
As of October 2026: Wolf regulation 2026/27, threshold-value motion 25.4464, consultation on the revision of the hunting act.
Argumentation guide: Answers to the most common objections to the culling policy.
Quick links: All relevant articles, dossiers and external sources.

Return of the wolf: population and distribution

Since the mid-1990s, the wolf has been returning to Switzerland by natural means, primarily via Italy and France. Monitoring data show that the population initially spread slowly, then considerably faster. In 2023, around 30 packs and a total of roughly 300 wolves were registered, mainly in the Alps, pre-Alps and Jura.

The spread varies considerably from region to region. In the canton of Grisons, the Calanda pack is regarded as the first established pack of modern times. Despite around 1,500 sheep within its territory, the pack killed only 37 livestock animals over five years: a direct result of consistent herd protection. Kill programmes, by contrast, are concentrated especially in Valais, where political pressure and the hunting lobby are particularly strong. In the Jura, only two packs are established (Marchairuz and Risoux), whose alpha wolves were killed in 2022 due to erroneous or cross-border kills, which acutely endangered the regional wolf population.

Wolves avoid humans: the research is unequivocal

Behavioural studies demonstrate that wolves consistently avoid humans. Experiments using audio recordings of human voices show pronounced flight responses, markedly stronger than those triggered by dog barking or bird calls. This persistent shyness stands in stark contrast to the public rhetoric of the “problem wolf” and makes clear that conflicts arise above all where livestock farming without protection, hunting interests and political pressure collide.

More on this: Wolf: ecological function and political reality and Special Hunt in Grisons

Political fault lines: who hunts the wolf?

In several cantons, politicians and the recreational hunting lobby are attempting to remove the wolf from the strict protection regime and bring it under regular hunting logic. The Valais wolf report 2025/2026 is a prime example of this: under the label “proactive regulation”, entire packs and numerous young animals were cleared for killing within just a few months, which in effect amounts to a systematic weakening of the Swiss population. In the 2025/2026 regulation period alone, the canton of Valais had 27 wolves killed: three via individual kill orders, 24 through the so-called regulation of entire packs.

Science versus the hunting act

In an open letter, more than 200 scientists criticise the fact that endangered species such as the wolf do not belong in the hunting act, because hunting tends to exacerbate conflicts rather than resolve them. In the article «Why endangered species do not belong in the hunting act» wildbeimwild.com examines precisely this line of conflict in depth. The central criticism: kills destroy social structures, which leads to increased reproduction, immigration and unstable behaviour—precisely the opposite of what is being sold as “regulation”.

Cantonal initiative “Wolf, enough is enough!”

As early as 2016, the canton of Valais, with its cantonal initiative « Wolf fertig, lustig! » (“Enough is enough with the wolf!”), called for the wolf's protected status to be abolished and for the Bern Convention to be renegotiated. The National Council's Environment Committee (UREK) approved the motion by a narrow majority. Pro Natura described it as an “extermination motion”. The Federal Council had already, in 2012 and 2013, created options for killing individual wolves in cases of significant damage, without touching the fundamental protection regime.

Christophe Darbellay and Fabio Regazzi

At the centre of the political wolf hunt are centrist politicians such as Christophe Darbellay (CVP Valais) and Fabio Regazzi (CVP Ticino). Both come from a party that presents itself as the guardian of Christian values, yet in wolf policy they pursue an uncompromising politics of interest in favour of the hunting lobby and livestock industry. Darbellay is not only politically responsible for Valais's kill programmes, but is himself a recreational hunter. In the article “Christophe Darbellay's war on wolves: polemics against the facts” wildbeimwild.com shows how individual events are deliberately emotionalised and blown out of proportion, and scientific assessments pushed aside, in order to create an atmosphere of permanent threat.

Regazzi, former hunting-association president in the canton of Ticino, promotes the Swedish wolf model as an example to follow — of all things, the very model that was halted by courts for violating rule-of-law requirements and species protection. The article “Fabio Regazzi and the wolf policy of knee-jerk reactions” documents how Regazzi's initiatives consistently shift wildlife policy from protection towards minimisation.

Two logics collide

At federal and cantonal level, two logics thus collide: a hunting-centred policy that treats the wolf as a mere “population figure”, and a nature-conservation-oriented perspective that places social pack structures, herd protection and international species-protection obligations at the centre.

More on this: Valais wolf balance sheet: figures of a massacre and Hunter lobby in Switzerland: how influence works

Herd protection: what really works

Switzerland has a wide range of proven herd protection measures at its disposal: electric fences, night-time enclosures, livestock guardian dogs, shepherding and adapted grazing methods. The Calanda pack in Grisons demonstrates that these measures work even in a wolf-rich area with around 1,500 sheep.

In the political debate, herd protection is frequently dismissed as “too expensive”, “impractical” or “impossible in steep alpine terrain”. The reality, however, shows otherwise: it is not herd protection itself that fails, but its consistent implementation and funding. In Valais, 3.2 full-time positions were indeed created to support the cantonal office, yet the bulk of the 13,390 working hours logged in 2025 went into wolf management and regulation, not into herd-protection advice. Calculating with conservative full costs of 60 to 80 francs per hour, the wolf massacre in Valais alone consumed between 0.8 and just over 1 million francs in taxpayer money in 2025. Killing a single wolf costs Swiss taxpayers around 35,000 francs.

Wolf kills in proportion

Pro Natura offers an important figure on this: according to studies, around 4,000 sheep die each year in the Swiss mountains from illness, falls or storms – not least due to a lack of supervision. By comparison, the 336 livestock kills attributed to wolves in 2022 (the second-highest figure since 1998) seem modest. Particularly telling: 174 of these kills occurred in Valais, and 54 in the canton of Uri, where the vast majority were attributable to a single animal (wolf M58), which has since moved on to Austria.

Livestock guardian dogs: benefits and side effects

Livestock guardian dogs are a central element of non-lethal wolf management, but they also bring conflicts of their own: occasional encounters with hikers occur, which the hunting lobby regularly exploits as an argument against herd protection. However, through professional training, clear signage and adapted grazing strategies, these problems can be significantly minimised.

International role models

In other European countries, projects show that coexistence with predators is possible when political will, funding and participatory approaches come together. In Italy, herd protection measures have been supported for decades, while Spain has successful programmes for conflict prevention. Switzerland could learn from these experiences instead of relying on a hunting logic that is scientifically considered ineffective.

More on this: Herd protection in Switzerland and Alternatives to Hunting: What Really Helps, Without Killing Animals

Legal framework: the Bern Convention and the Hunting Act

The wolf is protected in Switzerland under the Bern Convention (1979). This obligation under international law generally prohibits the intentional killing of wolves and permits exceptions only under strict conditions: when there is no other satisfactory solution, when public safety is at risk, or when significant damage to livestock occurs. In addition, it must be ensured in all cases that the conservation status of the species is not impaired.

In October 2024, the Bern Convention explicitly confirmed that “proactive” kills (i.e. preventive killing without any concrete damage) are illegal. In December 2024, the Bern Convention's Standing Committee opened an investigation procedure against Switzerland, because the current regulatory system is classified as not compliant with the Convention.

Swiss Hunting Act and the Wolf Concept

The Swiss Hunting Act (JSG) classifies the wolf as a protected species, but since 2012 has allowed individual kills under certain conditions. The 2008 Wolf Concept Switzerland regulates the damage threshold: 25 livestock killed within one month or 35 within four months entitle authorities to issue a kill order, but only if all technically feasible, practicable and financially viable protective measures have been implemented.

With the 2020 revision of the Hunting Act, the options for kills were expanded further: young wolves from a pack may, under certain conditions, be killed even if they are merely found regularly near settlements. This “proactive regulation” has been criticised because it no longer requires concrete damage as a trigger, but instead intervenes preventively in pack structures — thereby standing in direct contradiction to the Bern Convention.

European dimension

At EU level, the wolf is protected under the Habitats Directive (Fauna-Flora-Habitat Directive). Member states must ensure a favourable conservation status and may only permit removals under strict conditions. Several rulings by the European Court of Justice have confirmed that kills are only lawful if alternative measures have been exhausted and the population is not endangered.

Downgrading of protected status: what it means — and what it doesn't

In 2025, the wolf's protection status in the EU was downgraded from “strictly protected” to “protected”. Conservation organisations such as the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe called the downgrade “premature and flawed”, and more than 700 scientists voiced their concerns in open letters. What matters is this: the obligation to ensure a favourable conservation status remains in place even after the downgrade. Anyone who interprets the downgrade as a blank cheque for blanket wolf hunting either misunderstands the law — or does so deliberately.

More on this: Wolf in Europe: protection status, conflicts and political pressure and Illegal wolf hunting in Switzerland

Mistaken kills: a system, not a glitch

In 2022, at least three wolves were incorrectly shot in Switzerland. In the canton of Vaud, the lead wolf of the Marchairuz pack was mistakenly killed at the end of November, even though a juvenile had been designated for the kill. In October, in the canton of Grisons, the lead male of the Moesola pack was killed instead of a juvenile wolf. In March, in Valais, a wolf not approved for culling was killed.

The Groupe Loup Suisse (GLS) described these kills as unlawful: animals other than those approved for culling were killed. Shooting pack leaders has far more serious consequences than shooting young animals, as it can lead to the disintegration of entire packs. For the two wolf packs in the Jura arc (Marchairuz and Risoux), this meant an acute threat to the entire regional wolf population, since pack leaders were killed in both packs in 2022.

These mistaken kills are no coincidence, but rather the expression of a system that favours quantity over quality: when kill quotas have to be met, visibility conditions are poor and political pressure is high, the wrong animals end up being killed too. Responsibility for this lies not only with individual shooters, but with the political and administrative structures that enable and legitimise this practice.

More on this: Hunting laws and oversight: why self-supervision is not enough and Hunting Accidents in Switzerland

Juveniles in the crosshairs: ethics turned upside down

Particularly disturbing is the fact that juveniles are not only killed in problematic packs with repeated livestock kills, but also within the framework of a « basic regulation » in packs that have caused no serious damage. This means young wolves are killed before they even had the chance to learn how their pack relates to livestock and the landscape. Yet it is precisely these learning processes that are crucial for conflicts to decrease in the long term.

An ethic worthy of the name would define young animals as a red line: whoever harms them injures not only the individual but the future of the entire population. The Valais practice reverses this principle: young animals become the preferred target because they are the easiest to hit and statistically deliver quick “success”. To call this regulation obscures the fact that the very foundation of all moral responsibility — the protection of the weakest — is being deliberately ignored.

From the Valais wolf report 2025/2026 it becomes clear how the logic of hunting is seeping into the state's handling of wild animals: wild animals become populations, conflicts become case files, regulation becomes kill quotas.

More on this: Hunting and Animal Welfare: What the Practice Does to Wild Animals and Wild animals, mortal fear and lack of stunning

Wolf and mountain agriculture: structural conflicts

The conflicts between wolves and mountain agriculture are real, but their causes run deeper than the mere presence of predators. Swiss mountain agriculture has been under structural pressure for decades: farm closures, dependence on direct payments, steep topography and international competition shape the everyday life of many farms. In this context, the wolf becomes a projection screen for unresolved structural problems and a target of a hunting policy that undercuts scientific and ethical minimum standards.

Neither the role of direct payments and location policy, nor the responsibility of farming practices for conflicts with predators, is seriously discussed. The wolf is cast as the scapegoat, written out of the system with technical jargon (“basic regulation”, “full implementation”). Instead of consistently investing in herd protection, grazing management, advisory services and structural adjustments, the wolf is turned into a problem bear, to be “kept under control” through administratively precisely planned shootings.

The real questions – which type of agriculture we want to promote in the steep mountain regions, how livestock farming can be adapted to predators, and how much recreational hunting has a place in a modern constitutional state – remain unanswered.

More on this: The cultivated landscape as myth and Hunting myths: 12 claims you should scrutinise critically

Hunting Lobby and Lack of Transparency: Valais as a Case Study

Swiss hunting policy is shaped to a significant degree by hunting associations that have direct access to cantonal governments, commissions and parliamentary groups. In Valais, the entanglement between hunting affairs, politics and administration is particularly close: in 2016, the Office for Hunting, Fisheries and Wildlife (DJFW) was heavily criticised by the Business and Audit Commission over weak leadership, alcohol problems among individual game wardens, and outdated administration.

With professional game wardens and recreational hunting groups, the canton creates a hunting-centred infrastructure whose main purpose is not protection but efficient killing. Where sovereign mandate and recreational hunting merge into an alliance with a shared goal, that goal is: to kill as many wolves as possible, as smoothly as possible, as quietly as possible.

The article «Psychology of Hunting in the Canton of Valais» analyses how deeply rooted patterns of dominance, identity and community shape hunting culture. The return of the wolf is perceived as a threat to this order, because it calls into question control over one's “own” territory. Emotionalised campaigns, in which individual wolf kills are exaggerated into “attacks”, play on archaic images of fear and distract from structural problems.

More on this: How hunting associations influence policy and the public and The psychology of hunting

International Perspective: Europe in the Wolf War

Swiss wolf policy is not an isolated case, but part of a European pattern in which hunting associations, the agricultural lobby and populist politicians jointly try to undermine species protection. In Austria, the hunting lobby is repositioning itself under its new president, Anton Larcher, propagating “science instead of emotion” as a slogan, while the wolf, the bear and weapons law are being forced into a hunting-based control regime. The research wolf “Andrea”, which had been fitted with a GPS collar by the University of Udine, was shot dead in Carinthia during the night of 3 February 2026. A €250,000 project ended with a single shot.

Sweden: Model or Warning?

Fabio Regazzi has been praising the Swedish wolf model as an example for Switzerland for years. Yet it is precisely this model, in which licence hunts with politically fixed population targets, that has now been halted by the courts because it violates rule-of-law requirements and species protection. In the article «Wolf Hunt 2026 Stopped: How Courts Protect the Wolf Better Than Politics» wildbeimwild.com shows what this means for Europe's wolf policy: Sweden does not demonstrate how wolf management works, but how hunting policy fails in the face of the rule of law.

Poaching as a symptom

The case of a wolf illegally killed in Puschlav (Grisons, September 2025) is not an isolated incident, but part of a pattern across the Alpine region. The article «Criminal Complaint: Recreational Hunter Kills Wolf» documents how lenient criminal law and the political climate favour illegal wolf hunting.

More on this: Hunting crisis in Europe: FACE fights for shots, Switzerland remains in the shadows and Trophy hunting: when killing becomes a status symbol

As of October 2026

Since 1 September 2026, the pre-emptive regulation of wolf packs has been underway; it runs until 31 January 2027. According to the FOEN's overview (as of 4 October 2026), the Federal Office has granted 39 approvals for the regulation of packs, spread across seven cantons: Grisons, Ticino, Valais, St. Gallen, Neuchatel, Schwyz and Glarus. The federal government does not publish ongoing figures on how many wolves are actually killed. Our «Wolf kills Switzerland 2026/27» counter tracks the officially published kills; the assessment can be found in the Interim assessment after five weeks of wolf regulation.

Politically, the room for manoeuvre is set to grow further. On 23 September 2026, the National Council adopted Motion 25.4464 by Council of States member Fabio Regazzi by 116 votes to 73, with 6 abstentions, after the Council of States had already approved it in the spring session. The Federal Council must now create a legal basis allowing kills as soon as the wolf population reaches a threshold value set jointly with the cantons. The motion does not specify a number. More on this: «Wolf threshold value: National Council approves kills in advance».

In parallel, a consultation on a further revision of the hunting act, opened by the Federal Council on 24 June 2026, is running until 16 October 2026. It implements Motions 25.3715 (Friedli) and 25.3549 (Broulis): interventions in wolf packs are now also to become possible between 1 February and 31 May, as well as in federal hunting ban areas. According to the Federal Council, the prerequisite is that wolves repeatedly circumvent herd protection measures or endanger people. IG Wild beim Wild's position paper calls for both provisions to be deleted. Background: «Hunting act: consultation on wolf kills during the whelping period and in hunting ban areas» and «Hunting ban areas: why wolf kills undermine the very idea of protection».

Not nature management: a political massacre

In the end, there is a finding that cannot be softened: when entire packs are wiped out, young animals are systematically killed, and kill numbers are presented as success stories, this is not proactive regulation but a politically desired massacre. The wolf becomes a projection screen for the unresolved structural problems of mountain agriculture and a target for a hunting policy that undermines minimum scientific and ethical standards.

A truly contemporary approach to predators would have to rely consistently on non-lethal measures: maximum protection for young animals, promotion of stable pack structures, investment in herd protection, pasture management and advisory services, clear limits on hunting power, and transparency in kill decisions. Anything else is not ethics, but the legitimisation of violence against the most vulnerable.

More on this: Introduction to hunting criticism and Hunting ban in Switzerland: possibilities, models and limits

What needs to change

Immediate protection of young animals: A kill ban for young wolves under 12 months as an ethical and biological minimum requirement. The baseline regulation, which makes young animals a preferred target group, must be abolished.
Consistent herd protection as a prerequisite for kill permits: No kill without documented proof that all reasonable herd protection measures have been implemented and evaluated over at least one grazing season.
Independent wolf monitoring: Population surveys and damage analyses must be conducted by independent scientific institutions, without the involvement of hunting associations or cantonal agencies closely tied to hunting interests.
Establish legal compliance with the Bern Convention: Pre-emptive culls of entire packs must be removed from the revised Hunting Ordinance (JSV), regardless of the outcome of the ongoing investigation procedure.
Transparency in kill decisions: Every kill order must be publicly accessible, including complete damage history, herd protection documentation, and scientific justification.
Structural reform of mountain agriculture: The question of which forms of livestock farming in steep mountain regions are compatible with predators must be addressed politically, with adapted direct payments and advisory structures.
Template motions: Template texts for hunting-critical motions and Template letter: Appeal for change in Switzerland

Talking points

«The wolf threatens the mountain population.» Statistically, there have been zero wolf attacks on humans in Switzerland. Mountain agriculture faces structural challenges (farm abandonment, dependence on direct payments, topography) that no wolf kill will solve. Making the wolf responsible for structural problems means pursuing policy with the wrong scapegoat.

«Proactive regulation prevents damage before it occurs.» The Bern Convention stated in October 2024: pre-emptive culls without concrete, significant and repeated damage are not covered by the Convention and are therefore illegal. The Council of Europe's unanimously adopted investigation procedure is the consequence.

«Herd protection doesn't work in steep alpine areas.» The Calanda pack proves the opposite: 1,500 sheep, 37 kills in five years thanks to consistent herd protection. It is not herd protection that fails, but its consistent implementation and funding. In Valais, between CHF 0.8 and 1 million flowed into cull programmes in 2025 instead of into herd protection advisory services.

«The EU has downgraded the wolf's protection status, so hunting is now permitted.» The downgrading from «strictly protected» to «protected» changes nothing about the obligation to ensure a favourable conservation status. More than 700 scientists described the downgrading as premature. Those who interpret it as a free pass for widespread wolf hunting are misunderstanding the law.

«Mistaken kills are regrettable isolated cases.» In 2022, at least three wolves were wrongly shot: the Marchairuz pack leader, the Moesola male pack leader, and an unauthorised wolf in Valais. When kill quotas have to be fulfilled under time pressure and poor visibility conditions, mistaken kills are systemic, not accidental.

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Our Standard

The wolf in Switzerland is not a management problem. It is a political litmus test for whether a modern constitutional state is capable of enforcing species protection obligations against lobby interests. This dossier brings together the analyses, research and studies by IG Wild beim Wild on Swiss wolf policy, because a society that proclaims biodiversity and animal welfare as values must know what is happening in its name: planned pack killings, systematic shootings of young animals, and a hunting policy that ignores international legal standards.

If you know of leads, documents or current cases that belong in this dossier, write to us. Good information is the foundation of any effective criticism.

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