Federal Supreme Court: CHWolf may not sue against wolf kills

On 27 November 2023, the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) approved the killing of seven wolf packs: Calfeisental in St. Gallen, Beverin and Lenzerhorn in Grisons, and Augstbord, Hérens-Mandelon, Les Toules and Chablais in Valais.

Three weeks later, the FOEN withdrew the suspensive effect from any appeals. The cantons proceeded with the shooting. The association CHWolf, based in Einsiedeln, filed three appeals with the Federal Administrative Court in January 2024. Almost three years later, it is now certain: no court will ever examine whether these kills were lawful.

The seven approvals were part of the first preventive regulation in winter 2023/24, which triggered fierce criticism in several cantons. How the practice has worked since then is shown in the article on wolf regulation in Grisons.

With ruling 2C_46/2025 of 18 August 2026, published on 25 September, the Federal Supreme Court dismissed CHWolf's appeals; the parallel proceedings 2C_48/2025 (Grisons) and 2C_49/2025 (Valais) were joined with the St. Gallen proceedings. Not on the merits, but already at the threshold: the association was found not to have standing to appeal. What shrinks to a single sentence in the news agency report is, on closer reading, a landmark decision that redefines the rules for legal protection of predators in Switzerland.

What the Federal Supreme Court decided

The court, sitting in a panel of five under presiding judge Florence Aubry Girardin, first clarifies something that initially sounds positive for CHWolf: the entry in the list of organisations entitled to appeal (Annex to the VBO Ordinance) is not a precondition for the right to appeal. It is merely declaratory and establishes a rebuttable presumption. Anyone not on the list can demonstrate in the specific proceedings that they fulfil the statutory requirements of Article 12 of the Federal Act on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage (NHG).

It is precisely this proof that the court considers CHWolf to have failed to provide. And this is where the ruling becomes a landmark decision. In consideration 8.1, the Federal Supreme Court itself notes that it “has not yet commented in detail on the question of nationwide activity”. Now it does. The formula reads as follows: an organisation is only considered to be active nationwide if the orientation towards the whole of Switzerland is cumulatively stated in its statutes and this purpose is reflected in effective activity in at least two parts of the country. “Isolated, singular activities are not sufficient for this.” And this condition must have been met continuously for the full ten years prior to the submission of the appeal.

The years 2014 to 2017 as a stumbling block

For CHWolf, which filed its appeal on 12 January 2024, the period from January 2014 onwards was therefore decisive. In its rulings of 28 November 2024, the Federal Administrative Court had found that the association was “almost exclusively active in German-speaking Switzerland” from 2014 to 2017. The court did not accept two herd-protection projects from 2014 and 2015 in the German-speaking parts of the cantons of Fribourg and Bern: a presence in the German-speaking part of a French-speaking canton did not constitute activity in another part of the country. For 2016 and 2017, “no activity whatsoever outside German-speaking Switzerland was demonstrated”. The school project “A Wolf Goes to School” only began in 2018. And the association's website was only available in German, which made it appear that it “still did not want to reach an audience speaking another language”.

CHWolf could only have challenged these factual findings before the Federal Supreme Court by raising a qualified claim of arbitrariness. Over 14 pages, the association described its activities from 2011 to 2024, but according to the court, it did not engage with the specific findings of the lower instance. The Federal Supreme Court regarded this as “appellate criticism” and left the facts of the case unchanged.

Consideration 10.3 is rhetorically remarkable. CHWolf had argued that it should suffice to be active where the wolf actually occurs. The court turned the argument around: the association itself had submitted that the wolf was documented in Ticino in 2015 and in Valais in 2016. "The appellant, however, was active neither in Ticino from 2015 nor in Valais from 2016." Thus, "unlike the wolf", it had not been active across the whole of Switzerland during those years.

350 members against 5,000 wind power opponents

The ruling also shows who, according to the Federal Supreme Court's reading, is of "nationwide significance" in Switzerland. It refers to the 29 organisations listed in the VBO annex, including Pro Natura, WWF, Swiss Heritage Society, SAC and VCS, and cites them as the benchmark for "size and scope". CHWolf had around 350 members in 2024.

The comparison with the organisations most recently added to the list by the Federal Council is revealing. In 2018 these were the Swiss Gas and Water Industry Association and Dark-Sky Switzerland. In 2024, the association "Freie Landschaft Schweiz" was added, an umbrella organisation of wind power opponents with 45 member organisations, which, according to the FOEN's explanatory notes, "represent over 5,000 people". Anyone wishing to take action against wind turbines in the landscape thus has a right of appeal backed by federal law. Anyone wishing to protect wolf packs from being killed must first prove a decade of presence in French-speaking Switzerland or Ticino.

Aarhus Convention: left open once again

CHWolf invoked Article 9(3) of the Aarhus Convention, which guarantees environmental organisations access to justice. The Federal Supreme Court repeats what it has already done several times: whether this provision is directly applicable in Switzerland "need not be decided in the present case". The requirement to be active in more than one part of the country, rather than in all of them, is "in any case" in line with the Convention's requirements. The European Court of Justice, as the Federal Supreme Court itself notes, expressly denies direct applicability. A reference that does not exactly cast Swiss practice in a favourable light: a convention intended to ensure broad access to justice becomes an argument for keeping that access narrow.

What the ruling means for wolf protection

The Federal Supreme Court clarified the standing question in the abstract and left unanswered forever whether the FOEN was right to approve the killing of seven packs in November 2023. CHWolf's request for a declaratory finding that the FOEN had unlawfully given its consent was not even examined: it lay outside the subject matter of the dispute. Even a successful outcome would only have sent the case back to the Federal Administrative Court, almost three years after the kills took place. The association bears the court costs of 3,000 francs.

In practical terms, this means that organisations outside the VBO list will in future have to prove, on a case-by-case basis, that they meet the high requirements of Article 12 of the Federal Act on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage (NHG). For CHWolf, this proof failed. The ruling thus shifts the balance further towards the large associations already on the list. That these associations actually take this route is not a given. Pro Natura did so, and in June 2025 was proven right before the Federal Supreme Court, when the killing of a wolf in the canton of St. Gallen was ruled unlawful. In December 2023, complaints from large associations had at least temporarily succeeded in ensuring that wolf kills in Valais and Grisons were halted. At the same time, parliament has for years been working to further restrict the right of associations to lodge appeals.

CHWolf writes in its statement of 25 September 2026 that the reasoning is «hard to comprehend», since its project work on wolves and herd protection has concerned the whole of Switzerland since 2012. However, the association concedes that it is «currently still predominantly German-speaking oriented». It has since responded: since April 2026, «A Wolf Sets an Example» has also been available in French. For the ten-year period, this only counts from 2036 onwards. Until then, the association is left with what it is now attempting with the Chöpfenberg pack in Schwyz: the supervisory complaint, which does not require standing but also grants no right to a decision.

Wolf regulation in Grisons, Valais and the other cantons thus remains largely a matter between the FOEN, cantonal administrations and the few associations admitted to the proceedings. For smaller, specialised organisations, the path to the courts becomes considerably more difficult after this landmark ruling. The courts examine access. They hardly ever examine the substance of the matter itself.

Sources

• Federal Supreme Court, ruling 2C_46/2025, 2C_48/2025, 2C_49/2025 of 18 August 2026, published on 25 September 2026 (full text as PDF)
• Federal Administrative Court, rulings A-309/2024, A-374/2024, A-390/2024 of 28 November 2024
• Federal Office for the Environment, approval decisions on the regulation of wolf packs of 27 November 2023 and withdrawal of suspensive effect of 18 December 2023
• CHWolf, statement on the Federal Supreme Court ruling of 25 September 2026
• Art. 12 NCHA (SR 451); Ordinance on the Designation of Organisations Entitled to Appeal (VBO, SR 814.076); FOEN, explanatory notes on the amendment of the VBO of 27 November 2024
• Aarhus Convention (SR 0.814.07), Art. 9 para. 3