Stop fox hunting – write to the cantonal council of Uri
The Security Directorate of the Canton of Uri responded to the fox hunting petition by Pascal Wolf on 24 August 2026, signed by Deputy Governor Céline Huber.
Pascal Wolf had submitted it to the Uri cantonal council on 15 February 2026, posing six precise questions on the scientific necessity of fox hunting. Not a single one was answered. Instead, the letter provides a general statement of principle on the Swiss hunting system: legal foundations, sustainability, animal welfare, species protection and a eulogy to the Uri hobby hunters. Not a single scientific study is cited anywhere.
The key sentence reads: «Fox hunting endangers neither the fox population nor biodiversity.» No one had asked that. The petition wanted to know what scientifically proven benefit fox hunting has, not whether it causes harm. The most revealing point is a casual sentence: to illustrate the diversity of hunting systems, the Security Directorate itself refers to the canton of Geneva with its salaried game wardens, without noticing that this very example supports the petition. Geneva has managed without hobby hunting of foxes since 1974.
You can do something, no matter which canton you live in. Contact your cantonal councillor or your National Councillor directly. This is legal, effective and takes only a little time.
Important: do not rely on email alone. We have received feedback from several cantons that messages about hobby hunting of foxes sometimes come back as undeliverable. Whether this is due to faulty addresses or a deliberate filter cannot be determined from the outside. It is therefore better to use several channels: write a letter, call or seek a personal conversation. You can also contact the parties and parliamentary groups directly – often a message to the party or group secretariat is more effective than to individual council members. A phone call or a letter cannot be filtered out as easily as an email and often leaves a stronger impression.
Template letter – copy this text into your email programme
Subject: Fox hunting Uri – please examine the evidence
Please state the specific objective of fox hunting in Uri, the data on achieving that objective, and the scientific basis that justifies routine hunting over targeted and non-lethal measures.
Dear Ms [Name] / Dear Mr [Name]
As a citizen, I am contacting you directly because the practice of fox hunting in our canton concerns me.
On 24 August 2026, the Directorate of Security responded to Pascal Wolf's petition, which posed six concrete questions about the scientific necessity of fox hunting. The letter answers none of these questions. It describes the Swiss hunting system in general terms and cites not a single scientific study.
The central sentence of the response states that fox hunting endangers neither the fox population nor biodiversity. That was not the question. The petition wanted to know what scientifically proven benefit fox hunting has. Demonstrating that a measure does no harm does not begin to justify its necessity.
It is particularly telling that the Directorate of Security itself points to the canton of Geneva, where salaried game wardens carry out hunting as their profession. This very example supports the petition: Geneva has managed without hobby hunting of foxes since 1974, in recent years with minimal individual interventions and without excessive damage to agriculture, biodiversity or health. Luxembourg banned fox hunting in 2015, after which the proportion of foxes infected with the fox tapeworm actually declined.
Forgoing regular hunting does not mean an inability to act. The wildlife wardens can continue to selectively remove sick, injured or behaviourally conspicuous animals. What is in question is solely the routine killing of healthy foxes without any proven benefit.
I ask you to advocate in the cantonal parliament for a scientifically sound review of fox hunting, rather than pointing to federal competence, where the Confederation itself leaves the cantons room to manoeuvre. No federal law obliges the canton of Uri to hunt foxes. The canton of Zug has shown that this room to manoeuvre can be used.
Kind regards
[Your name]
[Your place of residence]
What was answered in the canton of Uri
The Directorate of Security replied on 24 August 2026, signed by Deputy Governor Céline Huber. The letter does take up the six petition questions by way of introduction, but does not address any of them in substance. What follows is a general text on legal foundations, sustainable use, animal welfare, species protection and the role of the hunting community. Formulations that fit any hunting petition whatsoever and therefore truly address none of them.
Particularly revealing: the Security Directorate itself cites Geneva as an example of "state hunting" with employed game wardens, without mentioning that Geneva has in fact managed without fox hunting since 1974. In doing so, the canton provides the very counter-evidence it should actually have examined. It is the same mechanism that the canton of Basel-Landschaft demonstrated in its reply.
What science says
Population regulation: Compensation mechanisms – higher fertility, better survival rates, immigration – balance out losses. Even the killing of three-quarters of a population is offset again the following year.
Rabies: Intensive hunting was unable to stop the rabies epidemic of the 1970s. Only the vaccination campaign from 1978 onwards had an effect. Lethal methods can even intensify epidemics, because hunted animals become more mobile.
Fox tapeworm: In a French study from the Nancy region (Comte et al. 2017), prevalence rose from 44 to 55 per cent despite high hunting pressure – because young foxes filling the gaps carry a higher worm burden.
Geneva: Without hobby hunting since 1974, no population explosion, no worse disease situation. Luxembourg: Since the hunting ban of 2015, the fox tapeworm rate has fallen from around 40 to below 10 per cent.
Full overview of studies: Studies: The impact of hobby hunting on wild animals
Why it is worth writing in
The Security Directorate is evasive, but the cantonal council can put the question on the political agenda. That is exactly what your letter aims at. The more cantonal council members are reached by the one unanswered question, the harder it becomes to ignore: what scientifically proven purpose still justifies the regular hunting of healthy foxes in the canton of Uri, if population regulation does not stand up scientifically as a justification and specific problem animals can also be removed in a targeted way?
The Zug SWILD report
The canton of Zug is, to date, the only Swiss canton to have responded to Pascal Wolf's fox hunting petition with a genuine scientific study. In autumn 2025, the Directorate of the Interior commissioned an expert report from SWILD – Urban Ecology, Wildlife Research, Communication. The second version was published in May 2026 and was presented to the hunting commission on 16 June 2026.
The result is clear: the fox hunting currently practised cannot regulate populations sustainably, does not improve disease control and is inferior to non-lethal methods when it comes to protecting livestock. The experiences from Geneva (since 1974) and Luxembourg (since 2015) confirm it: wildlife management works without hobby hunting of the red fox.
The full study is publicly accessible: Scientific foundations on fox hunting
Where to find the contact details
The Uri cantonal council (Landrat) has 64 members. Unlike some cantons, Uri does not provide a list with individual email addresses, but publishes the addresses of the cantonal council members as an Excel file at ur.ch (Landrat, «Addresses of the cantonal council members»). Individual members can be reached directly via the parliamentary group pages, for example at the SP Uri and the SVP Uri. Das Sekretariat des Landrats erreichst du unter landrat@ur.ch, die zuständige Sicherheitsdirektion unter huber.celine@ur.ch.
What has happened in the canton of Uri so far
📌 Uri government rejects protection for mountain hare and ptarmigan
A vote on a hunting ban for the two threatened species was held in 2025; the initiative narrowly failed. The government declared tourism and climate change to be greater threats than hobby hunting.
📌 Slaughter on the special hunt in the canton of Uri
If the target kill numbers of the big game hunt are not reached, the special hunt follows from November, during which pregnant and nursing red deer hinds in the winter refuge phase are also released for the kill.
📌 Extension of the red deer hunt: three additional days of violence instead of real reform
Because the kill targets were not reached, the Security Directorate, the hunting commission and the hunting community are extending the big game hunt by three days. More hunting pressure instead of a critical review of the system.
🧠 The psychology of hobby hunting in the canton of Uri
Why the Uri electorate continues to allow even threatened species to be hunted, and how deeply the reflex to kill is embedded in the cantonal approach to wild animals.
📌 An end to fox hunting – write to your cantonal council
The overview of the campaign with a template letter, the state of research and the situation in all documented cantons.
📌 Hobby hunters as false wildlife experts
How Pascal Wolf submitted petitions in over 12 cantons and what the authorities made of them.