Federal Council eases wolf culls once again

The growing wolf populations pose major challenges particularly for mountain regions, because they do not properly understand the wolf, according to animal expert Andreas Moser.

A partial revision of the hunting ordinance is intended to further ease the shooting of wolves. The revision takes into account the concerns of various associations that had jointly developed proposed solutions. This is intended to defuse the situation for the affected regions until a revised hunting law comes into force.

Wolf population grows – politics responds with culls

Currently at least 180 wolves and 20 packs live in Switzerland, and the wolf population continues to grow. In view of the challenges for alpine farming, the Federal Council wants to further ease wolf culls in addition to the provisions adjusted in 2021.

Parliament is also currently deliberating a new proposal to amend the Federal Hunting Act (JSG). This is intended to enable proactive regulation of wolf populations. The Swiss electorate had rejected the proposal for a revision of the hunting act developed by the Federal Council and Parliament in September 2020. The fact that hobby hunting fails as a means of population control, is consistently ignored.

Wolf kills account for only a fraction of sheep losses

Compared to 2010, the number of sheep killed by wolves has not increased but decreased. The damage figures are clear, as a survey by the sheep breeding association and nature conservation organizations shows. In 2012, of approximately 200’000 sheep summered in Switzerland, around 2%, or approximately 4’200, died from illness or accident on the alpine pastures. Wolf kills account for at most 10 to 20% of these losses. And this only because herd protection is absent or inadequately implemented in many places.

Where there are no wolves, chamois increasingly retreat into forests and damage young growth by browsing. When grazing on the same pastures as sheep, they become infected with sheep diseases. If they do not need to flee from wolves into rocky terrain, they lose their climbing abilities. The same applies to ibex. Deer, too, are kept on the move by wolves, which prevents all young silver firs and rowan trees from being stripped bare. How the Swiss Hunting Act deals with the ecological benefits of predators remains controversial.

Key elements of the partial revision of the Hunting Ordinance

Facilitated culling of damage-causing lone wolves: Going forward, the shooting of lone wolves (animals not belonging to a pack) is to be explicitly permitted even within pack territories. Experience from recent years has shown that lone individuals can roam and cause damage even within pack territories.

In areas where wolves are present and damage has already been recorded in the past, the damage threshold relevant for the culling of lone wolves is to be lowered from 10 to 8 livestock kills. In addition, lone wolves are to be eligible for culling in cases where a significant threat to human safety exists.

Immediate culling of a wolf in the event of a significant threat to humans: The revision is intended to create the possibility of an immediate culling when a wolf from a pack suddenly and unexpectedly threatens the life and limb of people. Such a culling is to be permitted without the approval of the Federal Office for the Environment FOEN.

Regulation of packs without reproduction: Cantons can already regulate wolf packs today with the approval of the federal government if the wolves cause major damage or a significant threat to people. However, this does not apply to packs in which no young have been born in the relevant year. The partial revision of the Hunting Ordinance is intended to allow, in future, the shooting of a yearling from the previous year as part of regulatory culls. The prerequisite here is also major damage or a significant threat to people, as well as a regionally secured wolf population.

Counting injured cattle or horses as damage: In future, not only cattle, horses and new world camelids (e.g. llamas or alpacas) killed by wolves, but also those seriously injured, should be counted as major damage. This new provision is intended to apply both to regulatory interventions in packs and to measures against individual wolves.

Dossier: Wolf in Switzerland: Facts, Politics and the Limits of Hunting