Glossary: Hunting and Wildlife Terms in Switzerland
40 terms on hunting, wildlife and nature conservation in Switzerland – with critical assessment from a hunting-critical perspective.
License hunting
Definition: System in which the state sells temporary shooting licenses («patents») for specific animal species and quantities to licensed hunters. License hunting is practiced in several German-speaking mountain cantons (including Graubünden, Valais, Ticino, Glarus).
Critical assessment from hunting perspective: License hunting is more strictly controlled by the state than territory hunting, but continues to legitimize recreational hunting as a leisure activity. The ecological necessity of shooting quotas is rarely independently verified.
Territory hunting
Definition: System in which individuals or hunting associations lease a hunting territory from landowners or municipalities and possess exclusive hunting rights within it. Predominant in Romandy, the Plateau and many other cantons.
Critical assessment from hunting perspective: Territory hunting creates economic incentives for high wildlife populations in the territory – which contradicts ecological regulation interests. Tenants have a financial interest in the territory, not primarily in a functioning ecosystem.
Den hunting
Definition: Hunting method in which specially trained earth dogs are sent into underground fox or badger dens to drive the animals out so they can be shot.
Critical assessment from hunting perspective: Den building hunting is one of the most controversial hunting methods under animal welfare law. An expert report commissioned by the Swiss Animal Protection STS concludes that it can repeatedly constitute animal cruelty. The cantons of Zurich, Bern and Vaud have banned it; at the federal level, Motion 23.3303 is underway for a nationwide ban.
Drive Hunt
Definition: Hunting method where drivers (people or dogs) drive wild animals towards waiting hunters through noise, movement and pressure. Used primarily for regulating wild boar populations.
Critical hunting assessment: Drive hunts cause acute mass stress in wild animals. Entire populations are disturbed through noise and pursuit. Several cantons have restricted drive hunts; the ecological effectiveness for population regulation is scientifically disputed.
Stalking Hunt
Definition: Special form of drive hunt where drivers move slowly and quietly through the territory ('pressing'), to gently move wild animals so they don't flee but slowly approach shooting lines.
Critical hunting assessment: Even though stalking hunts are less spectacular than classic drive hunts, they cause disturbance and stress in wildlife habitats. The lower flight intensity doesn't protect wild animals from hunting pressure, but merely changes its form.
Stand Hunting
Definition: Hunting method where hunters wait from a fixed position (high seat, blind) for wild animals to enter their field of fire. Often near wildlife trails, feeding stations (baiting) or wildlife plots.
Critical hunting assessment: Baiting (attraction feeding) at stands artificially increases wildlife density and creates the regulatory need that recreational hunters then use as justification. Furthermore, feeding is frequently used to condition wild animals – a practice that alters natural behavior.
Stalking
Definition: Hunting method where hunters actively and quietly roam through terrain to search for wild animals and stalk within shooting range. Stalking is considered the noblest craft in hunting culture as a particularly 'fair chase' method.
Critical hunting assessment: Stalking also ends with killing an animal. The romantic glorification of stalking as 'connection with nature' conceals that the goal is the killing of a living being.
Tracking
Definition: Search for a wounded but not immediately killed wild animal ('wounded game'). Specially trained tracking dogs are used for this, following the blood trail.
Critical hunting assessment: The necessity of tracking shows that shots regularly don't lead to immediate death. The wounded animal suffers until tracking, which can take hours. How often tracking fails or how long animals wander around injured is barely statistically recorded.
Predators
Definition: Wild animal species that actively hunt other animals as food. In Switzerland, these include wolf, lynx, brown bear as well as smaller species like fox, badger, polecat, marten and birds of prey.
Critical hunting assessment: Predators are ecologically essential: They naturally regulate wildlife populations, select weak animals and promote biodiversity. The hunting lobby describes them as competition and threat; natural science sees them as keystone species for healthy ecosystems.
Livestock Protection
Definition: Totality of measures to protect livestock from predators. Includes electric fences, livestock guardian dogs, night enclosures and shepherd accompaniment.
Critical hunting assessment: Scientific studies prove: livestock protection is more effective than wolf culling. Correctly installed electric fences reduce kills by 58–100 percent. Switzerland subsidizes livestock protection but simultaneously relies on wolf culling – a contradictory policy.
Livestock Guardian Dog
Definition: Dog breed specially trained for livestock protection that guards herds from predators. Common breeds in Switzerland include Patou (Pyrenean Mountain Dog), Kangal, and Maremmano-Abruzzese.
Critical hunting assessment: Livestock guardian dogs are an effective, non-lethal protection measure. Their use reduces livestock predation by an average of 76 percent. Conflicts arise when hikers or public dog owners encounter unsupervised livestock guardian dogs on alpine pastures – a management problem, not an argument against the method.
Game Warden
Definition: State-employed specialist who monitors wildlife and their habitats, documents wildlife damage, pursues poaching, and carries out officially ordered regulation culls.
Critical hunting assessment: Game wardens are professionally trained specialists without economic self-interest in hunting. The Geneva model demonstrates how state wildlife management by game wardens functions without private recreational hunting – with positive results for biodiversity and wildlife populations.
Lead Animal
Definition: Experienced animal that leads a group or herd and shapes their behavior, migration routes, and social structure. In deer, it is often an experienced doe; in wild boar, the lead sow.
Critical hunting assessment: Culling lead animals destroys social structures and demonstrably leads to increased reproduction in wild boar – the opposite of the intended regulatory effect. Targeted culling of lead sows remains common practice in many cantons nevertheless.
Lead Sow
Definition: The dominant, experienced wild boar sow (female wild boar) that leads a sounder. She passes on migration routes, social structures, and knowledge about habitats.
Critical hunting assessment: Culling lead sows is considered 'strategic' in hunting but often has the opposite effect: the collapse of social structure leads to more dispersal, higher reproduction rates, and thus more wild boar rather than fewer.
Cull Planning
Definition: Annual determination of cull numbers for huntable species by type, age, and sex by hunting authorities and hunting associations. Serves population regulation.
Critical hunting assessment: Cull plans are often created by authorities in cooperation with hunting associations – a conflict of interest. Independent scientific oversight is the exception. The boundary between ecologically necessary regulation and hunting economic interests is frequently unclear.
Hunting License
Definition: State-issued hunting permit that authorizes the culling of certain wildlife species in a defined area and time period. Requires passing a hunter examination.
Critical hunting assessment: The hunting license is the formal legitimation of recreational hunting. Examination requirements vary greatly between cantons; uniform, strict minimum standards are lacking.
Hunting Law
Definition: The Federal Act on Hunting and the Protection of Wild Living Mammals and Birds (JSG) regulates at the national level which animal species are huntable and which are protected. The revised JSG came into force on February 1, 2025.
Critical hunting assessment: The 2025 revision facilitates preventive wolf regulation – i.e., culls before concrete damage occurs. Conservation organizations criticize this as disproportionate intervention in a recovering population.
Closed Season
Definition: Legally established periods during which certain animal species may not be hunted – typically during reproduction and rearing periods.
Critical hunting assessment: Closed seasons protect young animals and pregnant females. In practice, it is criticized that closed seasons are frequently negotiated politically and not established exclusively according to biological criteria.
Fair Chase
Definition: A hunting term originating from Middle High German that describes a set of rules, traditions and ethical principles that hunters are supposed to follow in their dealings with wild animals.
Critical hunting assessment: 'Waidgerechtigkeit' is a term cultivated by the hunting lobby intended to provide ethical legitimacy for recreational hunting. It is not bindingly defined in current animal welfare law and often serves as a counter-concept to legally regulated animal welfare standards.
Big game
Definition: Traditional hunting term for larger, huntable wildlife species such as red deer, fallow deer, elk, wild boar, chamois, ibex and wolf.
Critical hunting assessment: The term 'big game' stems from a feudal hunting tradition and reflects a hierarchical valuation of wild animals according to hunting prestige, not ecological significance.
Small game
Definition: Hunting term for smaller wildlife species such as hare, fox, badger, pheasant, partridge, woodcock and others.
Critical hunting assessment: Many small game species are in severe decline in Switzerland. The partridge has been under hunting moratorium since 1988. That hunting pressure contributes to the decline of small game species is rarely admitted by the hunting lobby.
Trophy hunting
Definition: Hunting with the primary goal of keeping special body parts of killed animals (antlers, horns, fur, skulls) as collectibles or status symbols.
Critical hunting assessment: Trophy hunting is also criticized by parts of the hunting community because it disconnects hunting from meat acquisition or regulation and makes killing visible as an end in itself. Psychological studies see connections between trophy hunting, status presentation and dominance motives.
Trap hunting
Definition: Use of traps (live traps, kill traps) for catching or killing wild animals. In Switzerland, the use of traps is legally regulated, many trap types are prohibited.
Critical hunting assessment: Traps are unselective – they can also catch non-target species, domestic animals and protected animals. Trap victims can suffer for hours before being found. Animal welfare advocates demand more consistent controls and a broader trap ban.
Night vision device
Definition: Optical aid that amplifies thermal or residual light signals and enables hunting at night or in poor visibility conditions. Includes thermal imaging cameras and residual light amplifiers.
Critical hunting assessment: The use of night vision devices in hunting is regulated in Switzerland, prohibited in some cantons. Their use increases safety risks as identification of target objects becomes more difficult – a factor in fatal hunting accidents.
Lead ammunition
Definition: Hunting ammunition with projectiles made of lead or lead-containing material. Increasingly restricted or banned in Switzerland and many European countries because discharged lead fragments enter wildlife meat and the environment.
Critical hunting assessment: Lead ammunition poisons scavengers (eagles, kites, ravens) that ingest lead fragments remaining in killed animals. Studies show: In venison from lead shooting, concerning lead residues can remain in the food chain.
Lead shot
Definition: Small lead pellets in shot cartridges used for bird hunting and small game hunting. Banned in Europe for hunting on waters and in wetlands due to poisoning danger for waterfowl.
Critical hunting assessment: Waterfowl ingest lead shot from the bottom of water bodies as gizzard stones and poison themselves. The ban on lead shot on waters is a first step – animal welfare organizations demand a complete ban in hunting.
Game trail
Definition: Regularly used migration routes of wild animals between habitats, food sources and water sources. Recognizable by beaten paths, hair traces and fecal markings.
Critical hunting assessment: Wildlife corridors are systematically exploited by hunters for ambush hunting and trapping. Knowledge about wildlife corridors primarily serves hunting purposes, not animal protection. Where wildlife corridors are interrupted by infrastructure, death traps emerge.
Wildlife corridor
Definition: Networked habitat corridor that enables wildlife to migrate between isolated habitats. Protects genetic diversity and enables population dispersal.
Hunting-critical assessment: Wildlife corridors are essential for species conservation. The revised Hunting Act of 2025 nominally strengthens wildlife corridors – yet simultaneously more wolves are being shot, which also use corridors for dispersal.
Wildlife bridge
Definition: Specially designed overpass or underpass for wildlife at roads and other infrastructure barriers. Restores wildlife corridors and reduces wildlife accidents in road traffic.
Hunting-critical assessment: Wildlife bridges demonstrate: When society and politics want to, wildlife protection can be concretely implemented. At the same time, wildlife bridges are sometimes also used for hunting purposes – a contradiction to their protective intent.
KORA
Definition: Foundation for 'Carnivore Ecology and Wildlife Management', commissioned by the federal government to monitor wolf, lynx, brown bear and golden jackal in Switzerland. Provides scientific basis for management decisions.
Hunting-critical assessment: KORA provides the scientific data on which culling decisions are based. The political use of this data by hunting authorities does not always correspond to scientific recommendations.
BAFU
Definition: Federal Office for the Environment, responsible for implementing the Hunting Act at federal level, approving wolf culls and promoting livestock protection. Reports to the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (UVEK).
Hunting-critical assessment: BAFU is under strong political pressure from hunting and agricultural lobbies. Criticism from nature conservation organizations: BAFU approves wolf culls to an extent that is hardly compatible with its legal mandate for species protection.
BLW
Definition: Federal Office for Agriculture, responsible for agricultural policy, direct payments and livestock regulations. Coordinates subsidies for livestock protection measures together with BAFU.
Hunting-critical assessment: BLW primarily represents agricultural interests. In the wolf vs. livestock keeper conflict, it often sides with culling advocates, even when livestock protection data shows that prevention would be more effective.
Hunting Switzerland (Association)
Definition: Umbrella organization of Swiss hobby hunters (official name: 'JagdSchweiz'), representing the interests of its approximately 30,000 members vis-à-vis politics, authorities and the public.
Hunting-critical assessment: JagdSchweiz is an influential lobby organization that exerts political influence on hunting legislation, wolf policy and public communication. It defines hunting as 'sustainable wildlife management' – a framing that must be critically questioned scientifically.
Special hunt
Definition: Officially ordered hunt outside regular hunting seasons, e.g. to combat wildlife damage in agriculture, for population regulation or removal of problem animals.
Hunting-critical assessment: Special hunts can be flexibly ordered by cantons and thus escape the public oversight that accompanies regular hunting periods. Nature conservation organizations demand more transparency in special hunting permits.
Post-hunt
Definition: Post-season hunt for specific animal species after the end of the main hunting season. Usually serves to fulfill outstanding culling quotas or regulation of species with increased occurrence.
Hunting-critical assessment: Post-hunting extends the hunting burden on wildlife during seasons when many species are already stressed by winter conditions or early pregnancy.
High hunting season
Definition: Main hunting season in mountain cantons that practice patent hunting. In Graubünden, the high hunting season begins in early September and lasts approximately three weeks. It is the annual highlight for many hobby hunters.
Critical hunting assessment: The high hunting season in Graubünden annually mobilizes thousands of hobby hunters from across Switzerland. The hunting pressure on mountain areas is extreme during this time – with demonstrable effects on wildlife behavior and stress hormones.
Regulation
Definition: Term used in hunting and wildlife management for officially ordered or authorized interventions in wildlife populations through culling. Increasingly replaces the term 'hunting' in official communication.
Critical hunting assessment: 'Regulation' is a euphemism that depoliticizes the killing of wildlife through bureaucratic-neutral language. The term suggests scientific necessity, although the ecological basis for many 'regulations' is poorly documented.
Poaching
Definition: Illegal hunting without authorization, during prohibited seasons, or of protected animal species. Punishable in Switzerland under hunting law and criminal code.
Critical hunting assessment: Poaching is a real problem in Switzerland, but is barely statistically recorded comprehensively. Illegal wolf killings are rarely discovered; prosecution is incomplete. Poaching by hobby hunters (e.g., shooting outside the season) must be distinguished from deliberate poaching by criminals.
Hunting accident
Definition: Accident occurring in connection with hunting activities – through firearms, falls, crashes, or other injuries. In Switzerland, approximately 300 UVG-recognized cases annually, with about one fatality per year (UVG statistics, covers only employed persons).
Critical hunting assessment: The official figures underestimate the real frequency because retired hobby hunters, self-employed persons, and others not mandatorily insured are not recorded. A complete, publicly accessible statistic of all hunting-related deaths and injuries is still missing today.
Weapons law
Definition: The Swiss Federal Act on Weapons, Weapon Accessories and Ammunition (WG) regulates possession, acquisition, trade, and importation of firearms. It has been revised several times, most recently in the course of alignment with EU law.
Critical hunting assessment: Hobby hunters receive privileged access to semi-automatic weapons and ammunition through their hunting authorization. Animal protection and safety organizations demand more consistent examination of the psychological suitability of weapon owners, especially among hobby hunters.