Fribourg: hobby hunters want to hunt the ibex

Fribourg's hunters and their umbrella association have presented the canton with a list of demands aimed at a far-reaching expansion of hobby hunting.

At the centre of it all is, of all species, the ibex: both Fribourg colonies are so weak that the canton is not opening the species to hunting. Nature conservation organisations and a parliamentary motion are pushing back.

A catalogue of expansion

Fribourg's hobby hunters and the Fribourg hunting association have submitted a series of demands to the canton aimed at a far-reaching expansion of hobby hunting. The newspaper «La Liberté» made the move public and bluntly headlined that the people of Fribourg wanted to shoot the ibex. What at first glance looks like a set of technical details adds up to the pattern of a political offensive by the hobby hunting lobby: more huntable species, more technical aids and more luring. The ibex is the most symbolically charged demand, but by no means the only one.

In parallel, the demands concern artificial light as a shooting aid for wild boar and an expansion of baiting, that is, targeted feeding to draw animals in. Three demands, one common denominator: hunting pressure is to increase and hobby hunting is to become more technical, in order to compensate for hunters' own incompetence.

The ibex: protected, but not shot

Here a precise distinction is worthwhile. The ibex is a special species in Switzerland. After being wiped out at the beginning of the 19th century, it was reintroduced from 1911 onwards with animals from the Italian Gran Paradiso National Park. In the canton of Fribourg, two colonies have existed for decades: the one on the Vanil Noir with the adjoining Bimis, and the one on the Dent de Lys.

Legally, the ibex is protected, but it may be hunted under certain conditions. What matters is what the canton makes of this: because the populations of both colonies are too weak, the Office for Forests and Nature currently does not release the ibex for hunting. The demand from the hobby hunters is therefore not aimed at kills already under way, but at a political opening in an area where the canton has, for good reason, pulled the brakes.

Just how good those reasons are is shown by the recent population history. A few years ago, more than 300 animals were counted at the Vanil Noir; in 2014 there were around 200, and the 2016 survey produced a historic low of just 111 ibex. Between 2015 and 2016 alone, 55 animals disappeared, without the causes ever being fully clarified. A population that has collapsed to this extent cannot withstand any additional hunting pressure.

That of all species it is the ibex being targeted carries a bitter irony: the animal is the heraldic emblem of Pro Natura, Switzerland's oldest nature conservation organisation. How problematic hunting this species is has been evident for years in the neighbouring canton, where the controversial ibex hunt in Valais regularly causes disputes. It is precisely the selective hobby hunting of old bucks with especially large horns that has been criticised for years, because it can alter the age and social structure of ibex populations and generate undesirable selection pressure. Part of the biological and breeding background of the species is also a lesser-known chapter, which we examine in our article on ibex-goat hybrids.

Light and baiting: the hunting lobby has already succeeded

While the ibex is still only a demand, the hobby hunting lobby has already achieved a partial political success when it comes to wild boar. The Council of State has agreed to amend the hunting ordinance and to permit the use of an artificial light source as a shooting aid under certain conditions: on high seats in the international water and migratory bird reserves as well as in cantonal reserves on the southern shore of Lake Neuchatel, until 9 p.m., for hunting wild boars. On this occasion, baiting is also to be extended to a limited degree in the same areas in order to lure the animals deliberately. The relaxation was triggered by a motion from the ranks of the SVP and the Centre party, which argued with crop damage and the risk of African swine fever.

As long as the amendment to the ordinance has not come into force, this remains a political pledge. Yet the setting is already remarkable: it is of all places bird reserves in which shooting with artificial light and luring with bait are now to be permitted.

Pro Natura: «How much further will this go?»

Conservationists see in this development not a detail but a direction of travel. Morgane Bättig, project manager at Pro Natura, observes the relaxations with concern and puts the key question in a nutshell: how much further does one actually intend to go? She fears that hobby hunting is becoming ever more technological, and that this comes at the expense of ecology. The increasing technical armament of hobby hunting could disturb wild animals, compromise the safety of other users of the landscape and raise serious questions of respect and ethics.

What the hobby hunters are selling as an «improvement» is, from this perspective, the opposite: an escalation that shifts the balance of power between humans and wild animals still further in favour of the gun.

The political response: a motion against hunting endangered species

The offensive by hobby hunters has been met with a counter-move in the cantonal parliament. Grand Council member Grégoire Kubski (SP, Fribourg), together with Pierre Vial (SP, Progens), has tabled a motion calling for a ban in the canton of Fribourg on hobby hunting of protected species as well as of those species listed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered on the Red List of the Federal Office for the Environment. According to «La Liberté», Kubski justifies the motion with the growing pressure from the hunting lobby, which he describes as highly effective. It is time, he says, to show that there are limits.

The motion strikes at a genuine contradiction within the system. In Switzerland, species whose survival is threatened may still be hunted without any compelling reason such as crop damage. We have documented this tension between hunting practice, the hunting act and the Red List in detail in our overview of the hunted wild animal species in Switzerland. That Fribourg is no innocent party in this is shown by the case of the woodcock: the canton is sticking to the hunting of the Bécasse, even though the species is on the Red List, while in numerous German-speaking cantons it has long been banned.

A licence hunting canton without any ongoing duty of care

An argument the hobby hunting lobby likes to use to justify its special rights runs as follows: whoever hunts also tends and regulates. In Fribourg's case, this argument holds little water. Fribourg is a licence canton. Hobby hunting is organised as licence hunting: private individuals obtain a cantonal licence and an annual hunting permit and hunt across the entire cantonal territory, without any fixed responsibility for a hunting ground as in the territorial hunting cantons.

This means there is no continuous tie to an area and its stewardship. A publicly documented, annually recurring conservation obligation for licence holders is not discernible in Fribourg. By way of comparison: in the canton of Jura it amounts to around eight hours a year, in Grisons to about five. In Fribourg, by contrast, the only clearly documented conservation work is a one-off requirement during training: anyone seeking to sit the hunting examination must perform at least 50 hours of work for nature during the roughly 18-month preparation period. Beyond this one-off contribution to nature, the canton ought to set out transparently which binding stewardship duties hunting licence holders actually owe in the course of ongoing hunting operations.

In any case, licence holders assume no fixed ecological responsibility for a hunting ground; they act within the framework of cantonal kill quotas, which are geared primarily towards the interests of forestry and agriculture. That considerably undermines the self-image of the caring steward and raises the question of what legitimacy hobby hunting can claim in now demanding additional rights over protected species.

A strained relationship

The current conflict comes at a time when relations between Fribourg's hobby hunters and the cantonal wildlife wardens are already tense. The trigger was the acquittal of an experienced hobby hunter who had put down a roe deer injured by a large predator without first informing the responsible game warden. A senior official of the cantonal office called this acquittal into question in writing, whereupon the presiding judge rebuked him for a breach of the separation of powers and the responsible state councillor had to intervene.

In this context, a remarkable statement was made. In spring 2026, the game warden concerned stated in a letter to the presiding judge that the acquitted hobby hunter, like every hobby hunter and as the statistics showed, injures healthy animals every year in the course of hobby hunting, without this appearing to trouble him particularly. An admission from within the wildlife wardens' own ranks that lays bare the flip side of hobby hunting. «La Liberté» was able to view the letter.

The cantonal enforcement record for the 2025/26 season lists 31 fixed penalty fines, 13 reports of offences and two licence withdrawals. The same record shows 162 wild boars killed by licensed hunters as well as 117 subsidiary kills by the wildlife wardens. For an overview of associations, lobby pressure and political influence in hunting, it is worth taking a look at the big hobby hunter radar.

Not an isolated case, but a direction of travel

As early as 2020, a broad committee formed in Fribourg against the then tightening of the federal hunting act, backed by the SP, the Greens, the Green Liberals and the CVP and supported by Pro Natura, WWF, the Cercle ornithologique, animal welfare organisations and BirdLife. Resistance to extending hobby hunting to protected species thus has a tradition in the canton.

And that is precisely what is at stake now: a small ibex population that the canton does not open to hunting because of its weak numbers is confronted with a demand for hunting to be opened up. Together with the plans for artificial light as a shooting aid and for more feeding, a political direction becomes apparent: more hunting pressure, more technical means and less regard for the protection of wild animals. Whether the motion by Grégoire Kubski and Pierre Vial can slow this development will be decided in the Fribourg cantonal parliament.