Farmers say No to the Hunting Act

Despite a heated atmosphere, farmers from all parts of the country are campaigning against the Hunting Act. T

hey are advocating for herd protection strengthened at every level and a better approach to coexisting with wildlife. A No paves the way for a measured law with sensible regulation of wolf populations.

Herd protection is the most important tool for ensuring that sheep and goat farming remains viable even where wolves are present. Yet despite federal support, livestock keepers still face considerable funding gaps, particularly in alpine summer grazing areas. Farmers are left to cover up to half of the additional costs, largely due to the increased labour requirements.However, the revision of the Hunting Act put to a vote on 27 September failed to strengthen herd protection and its funding sufficiently to allow for comprehensive compensation of additional costs in the future. In this respect, the revision offers livestock keepers nothing in precisely the area that matters most.

Biodiversity is important to farmers too — because we live from and with nature. We therefore reject any one-sided loosening of species protection. We already have the legal foundations today to remove individual protected animals causing damage, or even to regulate their populations if necessary. A No creates the basis for a meaningful revision of the law that addresses the management of wolves appropriately, effectively improves herd protection compared to the current proposal, and strengthens the protection of threatened animals. That is what we stand for. Coexistence between wildlife — including large predators such as the wolf and the lynx — and a nature-compatible, animal-friendly agriculture is entirely possible.

Livestock protection in Switzerland is based essentially on two means: electrified fences and livestock guardian dogs. Equally important, however, is the personnel required to erect fences and supervise livestock guardian dogs. While fences and livestock guardian dogs receive financial support through the Federal Office for the Environment's (FOEN) livestock protection program, the alpine summer grazing contributions from the Federal Office for Agriculture cover personnel costs and operational measures on the alpine pastures. However, numerous additional expenses incurred by farmers are not covered by federal contributions: neither is the considerable workload involved in livestock protection adequately compensated, nor are the material costs covered. Alpine farming operations therefore face major financial difficulties — difficulties that will only be compounded by the botched hunting act revision.The revision missed an important opportunity to promote mountain agriculture.

A measured regulation of wolf populations within the constitutional framework can be one of the instruments for coexisting with the wolf. Regardless of whether wolves are regulated or not, they will continue to kill unprotected sheep and goats. This entirely natural behavior will be very difficult to train out of them.Livestock protection therefore remains by far the most important of all instruments for coexisting with the wolf. It is precisely the urgently needed strengthening of this instrument that was missed with the revision of the hunting act.Instead of enshrining in hunting law that comprehensive financial support for livestock protection — oriented toward actual costs — should be provided, the revision places one-sided emphasis on the culling of protected species, suggesting to livestock keepers that problems with the wolf could be solved with a bullet.The revision therefore makes coexistence with the wolf more difficult, rather than easier.

This contradicts the FOEN's claim that livestock protection would be strengthened. The opposite is true. The new hunting act would paradoxically make culling possible without livestock protection measures in place (currently, livestock protection is required), yet at the same time mountain farmers would only receive compensation for sheep and goats if they had protected the animals with dogs and fences.If the law was going to be revised at all, it should have supported the work of farming families — not promoted culling.