Fox hunting in Lucerne: 98 per cent of killed animals healthy

The letter is addressed to Michael Kurmann, President of the Cantonal Council Committee for Spatial Planning, Environment and Energy (RUEK).

On 23 April 2026, this committee dealt with Pascal Wolf's petition of November 2025 for the protection of the red fox. For the IG, the report does not meet "the minimum requirements for a serious parliamentary debate".

The central procedural reproach weighs heavily: the petitioner was not even given a hearing, although the rules of procedure of the Cantonal Council would have allowed this. The only body consulted was the Department of Construction, Environment and Economic Affairs — precisely the administration whose status quo the petition criticises. An open-ended review would look different.

98 per cent healthy: the figure the canton itself records

Lucerne is/was the only Swiss canton that systematically records diseases in foxes that have been shot. In the 2018/19 hunting year, 2,217 foxes were shot. 39 of them were sick, that is 1.76 per cent. Over 98 per cent of the animals killed were healthy.

This causes the main argument of the report to collapse — namely, that the hobby hunting of foxes serves to contain diseases. Anyone who shoots almost exclusively healthy animals does not contain any disease. The reasoning also does not hold for the fox tapeworm, because infected foxes are usually outwardly healthy and do not even appear in the disease statistics. More background on this in the dossier The fox in Switzerland: the most-hunted predator without a lobby.

Criticism from within the ranks of the hobby hunters themselves

It is notable that the IG underpins its doubts with voices from within the hobby hunting community itself. In the Tagesanzeiger of 26 November 2025, Zurich hobby hunter Franz Balmer, who has been active for 13 years, admitted: "In this way we do more to damage the reputation of hunting than to help it." Wildlife biologist Sandra Gloor explained that shooting a fox out of a family group achieves "absolutely nothing". And Robert Brunold, former association president of the Grisons hobby hunters, stated: "Low hunting is not necessary." Three independent voices thus arrive at the same conclusion: fox hunting serves no factual purpose.

Not a single study, no look at Luxembourg

The report does not cite a single wildlife biology study. Yet the research is overwhelming: dozens of investigations from Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany and Switzerland have for decades reached the same conclusion. Hobby hunting cannot reduce fox density across the landscape, because losses are quickly offset by immigrating animals and rising birth rates. Where heavy hunting takes place, the proportion of young foxes also increases — and it is precisely these young foxes that carry by far the greatest share of the fox tapeworm burden. Several studies therefore conclude that hunting is not only ineffective at containing the parasite, but actually counterproductive.

The proof in practice comes from hunting-free areas. In national parks such as the Bavarian Forest or Berchtesgaden, foxes have not been hunted for decades, yet their populations have not exploded. On the contrary, foxes there on average even produce fewer cubs than in the hunted neighbouring areas. The report also fails to mention the fox hunting ban in Luxembourg in force since 2015, even though the local fox tapeworm infection rate fell from around 40 percent in 2014 to under 20 percent by 2020 following the ban. Just how inconvenient the international comparison is becomes clear all the way to France, where conservation associations are likewise calling for protection of the red fox.

What damage does the fox actually cause?

That leaves the question of what damage the killing of thousands of healthy foxes is supposed to prevent in the first place. The scientific answer is sobering. The fox feeds predominantly on mice, thereby keeping in check rodents that cause far greater damage in agriculture and forestry. Its impact on threatened prey species is, according to the consistent body of research, minor. Where hares, grey partridges or meadow birds are declining, the main causes are intensive agriculture and habitat loss — not the fox. Killing predators has been shown to do little to help threatened species.

By contrast, the damage on the other side is well documented. According to studies, for every fox shot dead, at least one more animal is merely wounded and dies undetected. If a parent animal is killed during the mating and rearing season, the cubs' chances of survival drop drastically. From an animal welfare law perspective, earth hunting repeatedly fulfils the criteria of cruelty to animals. Put pointedly: the demonstrable damage is caused not by the fox, but by hunting it.

“Considerable additional costs” without a single figure

The report warns of “considerable additional costs” should the fox be placed under protection, yet does not cite a single figure. The IG counters with the Geneva model: the canton has managed without hobby hunting since 1974 and spends around one million francs per year on its entire wildlife management — the equivalent of roughly one cup of coffee per inhabitant. An economic claim made without any comparative calculation is simply untenable.

Deadline of 4 June and the threat of a popular initiative

The IG demands that Kurmann issue a public statement by 4 June 2026 at the latest, and in any case before the matter is dealt with in plenary. Furthermore, the RUEK should withdraw the report and make up for the missing procedure, with a hearing of the petitioner, with independent experts and with transparent disclosure of disease and cost figures. Should this fail to happen, the organisation announces motions in the cantonal council, an expanded petition and, if necessary, a cantonal popular initiative.

The IG sees its legal lever in the Animal Welfare Act: this prohibits inflicting “unjustified” suffering on an animal, which is why every killing must be measured against an objective justification. And the organisation locates its political tailwind in recent history: on 27 September 2020, voters rejected the revised hunting act by 51.9 percent — for the IG a clear signal in favour of greater wildlife protection.

Sources

• Open letter from IG Wild beim Wild to cantonal councillor Michael Kurmann, Acquarossa, 21 May 2026
• RUEK statement on the Pascal Wolf petition, Canton of Lucerne, 23 April 2026
• Cantonal disease statistics Lucerne, 2018/19 hunting year
• Tagesanzeiger: “Hunting season in Zurich: dispute over the purpose of fox hunting”, 26 November 2025
• Animal Welfare Act (TSchG), Art. 4 para. 2 and Art. 26 (earth hunting)
• Federal vote on the revised hunting act, 27 September 2020
• Data on the prevalence of the fox tapeworm following the fox hunting ban in Luxembourg (since 2015)
• Frommhold, D. (2016): The red fox (Vulpes vulpes), short summaries of scientific literature, fuechse.info
• Population dynamics (no reduction through hunting): Baker & Harris (2006); Rushton et al. (2006); Baker et al. (2002, Nature); Hewson (1986)
• Stable, unhunted populations: Bavarian Forest National Park Administration (2009), Scientific Series Issue 18
• Fox tapeworm and proportion of juvenile foxes: Deplazes et al. (2004); Tackmann et al. (1998); König et al. (2008)
• Low impact on threatened prey species: Côté & Sutherland (1997); Mooij (1998); Smith et al. (2005)
• Animal welfare and injury rates: Fox et al. (2003, 2005); Bolliger, Gerritsen & Rüttimann (2010); Vergara (2001)