Fox Hunting: Bern Government Refuses to Examine the Evidence

The motion was submitted on 3 December 2025 by GLP cantonal councillor Casimir von Arx, co-signed by representatives from the SP, SVP, Greens, EVP and FDP.

The motion called for a time-limited, scientifically accompanied field trial: in a suitable area, it was to be examined how a complete or partial renunciation of hunting the red fox would affect fox populations, wild animal health, public health, biodiversity and agriculture.

The scale involved is considerable. According to federal hunting statistics, between 15,000 and 25,000 red foxes are typically shot per year in Switzerland, with between 2,000 and 3,500 animals in the canton of Bern alone. As the «Berner Zeitung» reported at the end of October 2025, most of the roughly 3,000 foxes killed in Bern subsequently end up in the rubbish.

The driving force behind the initiative is the lawyer Pascal Wolf, who has launched similar motions in more than twelve cantons, focused mainly on questioning the scientific necessity of fox hunting. Authorities have often rejected these so far, most recently the responsible Lucerne committee, whose approach wildbeimwild.com has critically traced. Wolf's commitment and the technical background are likewise extensively documented.

The Cantonal Government's Reasoning

In its decision of 6 May 2026, the Cantonal Government recommends rejection. Its argument is not based on data but on the systematics of hunting law: under the federal hunting act, the red fox is a huntable wild animal species, its population is widespread throughout the canton and in no way threatened. Restrictions on hunting could primarily be justified by species protection, which does not apply here. There was therefore no need to scientifically investigate the effect of forgoing fox hunting.

Remarkable is a passage formulated by the Cantonal Government itself: since non-threatened species may be used through recreational hunting, recreational hunting is «de facto an end in itself» and need not fulfil any explicit regulatory mandate. In doing so, the government confirms precisely the point that recreational hunting usually disputes in public.

The core contradiction

This is precisely where the weakness of the answer lies. The motion did not ask whether the fox is threatened, but whether hunting actually fulfils the purposes attributed to it. The Cantonal Government leaves this question unanswered. First signatory von Arx accordingly criticises publicly on Radio BeO that the government is missing the actual point of the motion.

The scientific starting point here is by no means open to debate. Rabies was eradicated in Switzerland with vaccine baits, not with the rifle. Fox tapeworm can be effectively reduced using deworming baits, whereas hunting is considered unsuitable for this purpose. Fox populations remain stable even under heavy hunting pressure, because immigration and increased reproduction quickly offset losses. Research mostly attributes the decline of rare species to habitat loss and intensive agriculture, not to the fox as a predator. Wild beim Wild has summarised the state of research on evidence-based fox management.

That forgoing it is practicable is shown by a look across the cantonal border. In the canton of Geneva, hunting by private individuals has been banned since 1974, with only up to twenty official special kills taking place each year. Luxembourg has protected the fox all year round since 2015. Within Switzerland, too, there are hunting-free zones: in the Swiss National Park, all hunting has been prohibited since its founding in 1914, and the fox, like all other species, is fully protected there — numerous other national parks across Europe handle it the same way. In none of these cases has there been a population explosion, increased disease, or excessive damage. The often-repeated argument that the Geneva model cannot be transferred elsewhere therefore does not hold up to scrutiny. More on this in the dossier on Self-regulation of wildlife populations and in the article on the animal cruelty involved in fox hunting.

When hunting fosters disease

The discrepancy becomes particularly clear with recreational hunting's health argument. Rabies was eradicated in Switzerland with vaccine bait, not with the rifle. In the case of the fox tapeworm, a four-year study in the Nancy region shows the opposite of what was expected: despite massively intensified nocturnal hunting across around 700 square kilometres, during which the kill count rose by 35 percent, the fox population did not shrink. The infestation rate with the parasite climbed in the test area from 40 to 55 percent, while it remained stable in the comparison area. The study bears the telling title «An inappropriate paradigm». By contrast, deworming bait has proven effective, reducing the infection risk by 97 to 99 percent in the Bavarian district of Starnberg.

Evidence also speaks against culling when it comes to ticks. In areas with high activity by predators such as foxes and stone martens, rodents carry significantly fewer ticks, and these are less often infected. Anyone who decimates the fox, a hunter of mice, therefore tends to increase the risk of Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis, whose case numbers in Switzerland recently reached record highs. wildbeimwild.com has shown how recreational hunters spread disease and why recreational hunting even fosters disease.

The stakes are high, as Switzerland is a European hotspot for the fox tapeworm. A 2025 review published in «The Lancet Infectious Diseases» counted 4,207 cases of alveolar echinococcosis across Europe between 1997 and 2023, around 68 per cent of them in Germany, France, Austria and Switzerland. Per capita, Switzerland ranks second after Lithuania. Relying, of all things in this situation, on hunting that has been demonstrably shown to be counterproductive rather than on deworming is difficult to justify in terms of public health policy.

Licence hunting canton without territorial obligation

Important for context: Bern is one of sixteen licence hunting cantons. Anyone who purchases a licence may hunt throughout the entire canton without bearing responsibility for a specific hunting ground. The notion that recreational hunters fulfil a comprehensive management task through fox culling cannot be derived from this system.

What happens next

With the Governing Council's rejection, the matter is not yet settled. The motion will now be decided by the Grand Council, probably in the autumn session of 2026. The cross-party sponsorship shows that support for a fact-based review of fox hunting is growing even outside traditional animal welfare circles.

Sources

• Canton of Bern, Governing Council: RRB 446/2026 of 6 May 2026, response to Motion 351-2025 «Trial abandonment of fox hunting» (Business No. 2025.GRPARL.1535)
• Federal Act on Hunting and the Protection of Wild Mammals and Birds (JSG, SR 922.0), Art. 1, 3 and 5
• Federal Hunting Statistics: https://www.jagdstatistik.ch
• Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), Rabies: https://www.bag.admin.ch/de/tollwut
• Berner Zeitung: «Controversial fox hunting: most of the 3,000 animals shot end up as waste», 30.10.2025
• Baker P. J. et al. (2002): Effect of British hunting ban on fox numbers
• Kämmerle J.-L. et al. (2019): Restricted-area culls and red fox abundance
• König A. et al. (2019): Effective long-term control of Echinococcus multilocularis
• Comte S. et al. (2017): «Echinococcus multilocularis management by fox culling: an inappropriate paradigm» (Nancy area, France)
• Hofmeester T. R. et al. (2017): Cascading effects of predator activity on tick-borne disease risk, Proceedings of the Royal Society B
• The Lancet Infectious Diseases (2025): Europe-wide review of alveolar echinococcosis (Medical University of Vienna et al.)
• Deworming baits, Starnberg district (Bavaria): reduction of infection risk by 97 to 99 per cent
• Radio BeO: «Grand Council to decide on fox hunting trial», 18.5.2026