St. Gallen ends wolf regulation for this winter
One should be able to expect a game warden to know the method of age determination and to reliably distinguish a juvenile from an adult animal.
Lead male and lead female wolf mistakenly shot
The Office for Hunting and Nonsense St. Gallen had on 4 December 2023 ordered the shooting of all wolves of the Calfeisental pack.
By 31 January 2024, the game wardens had shot two of the eight wolves from the pack. Contrary to initial assumptions, however, the wolf shot as a juvenile turned out to be the lead male, according to a statement from the canton.
Genetic analysis confirms mix-up
According to the latest findings, the Office for Hunting and Nonsense assumes that the wolves killed were the lead male and the lead female. Due to its low weight, the Office for Hunting and Nonsense had assumed that one of the wolves killed was a juvenile. However, examinations at the institute showed that the wolf was already older. The genetic analysis at the Laboratoire de Biologie de la Conservation de l’Université de Lausanne confirmed that it was indeed the lead male.
Over 400 hours of searching at night
The “experts” spent over 400 hours searching for and shooting the wolves since the beginning of December. They searched mostly at night using thermal imaging devices. Recreational hunters within the shooting perimeter also supported the game wardens with reports and deployments.
The pack had already begun to disperse at the beginning of winter. The last camera trap record of the entire pack dates from mid-November 2023.
Dossier: Wolf in Switzerland: Facts, Politics and the Limits of Hunting
Further articles
- Swiss meadows are losing biodiversity at a dramatic rate
- When sheep, cattle and co. occupy wildlife habitat
- Swiss Animal Protection criticizes planned wolf culls as a threat to pack structures and livestock protection
- In Graubünden, wolf mismanagement runs rampant
- Val Fex: When the livestock protection concept is more full of holes than the fence
- Culling instead of protection – Switzerland on the path to silent wolf extermination
- Communication failure at the Office for Hunting and Fishing Graubünden
- Illegal wolf hunting in Switzerland
- Wolf pups in Switzerland caught in the crossfire
- Switzerland sells wolf massacre as success
- Sloppiness in Katrin Schneeberger's office
- Grazing by livestock alters the soil, plants and insect populations
- The insane hunt for wolves in Switzerland
- The truth about sheep mortality in Switzerland: causes and statistics
- Wolf culls in Switzerland: concern over party politician Albert Rösti
- Let's stop the SVP's destructive rage
- Participatory campaign: An appeal for change in Switzerland
- 200 environmental organizations from 6 continents call on the Swiss government: Stop the wolf cull
- Federal Council strongly criticized by wolf experts
- The consequences of controversial wolf management in Switzerland
- Wolf: Federal Councillor Rösti (SVP) circumvents law and order
- Es Burebüebli mahn i nit
- Are BAFU and the hunting authorities still operating responsibly?
- Federal Councillor Albert Rösti tramples the will of the people
- The consequences of controversial wolf management in Switzerland
- Too many sheep harm biodiversity
- Agricultural use destroys alpine meadows
- Kills despite livestock protection – how is that possible?
- The rotten apple in the St. Gallen hunting administration
- Pro Natura calls for a comprehensive strategy for summer sheep grazing
- According to Agridea study, livestock protection with dogs works well
- Thanks to livestock protection, wolves in Switzerland kill fewer farm animals
- Farmers treat fields as disposal sites
- Biomass of wild animals
- Of sheep farmers and evasive authorities
- The double standards of wolf opponents
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier The Role and Criticism of Recreational Hunters we shed light on the training, power and self-image of recreational hunters. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
