FOEN rejects wolf regulation in Graubünden
Federal Office for the Environment rejects application to regulate the Beverin pack.
The Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) has rejected the application by the canton of Graubünden dated September 11, 2020, regarding the regulation of the wolf pack «Beverin».
One killed donkey does not constitute “major damage”
The FOEN considers only the killing of the donkey on the Alp Durnan as an incident involving livestock that was reasonably protected. However, the FOEN concludes that a single donkey killed does not constitute “major damage” under federal hunting legislation, which would justify regulating the wolf as a protected species.
Canton is concerned
The authorities of the canton of Graubünden note with concern “that wolves are venturing into herds of cattle and horses as well”. The senseless regulation of the Beverin wolf pack in 2019 was hoped to have a deterrent effect on the remaining wolves of the Beverin pack.
According to IG Wild beim Wild, the events of 2020 unsurprisingly demonstrate that the implementation of the deterrence effect was a failure.
The ENEC-NC motion «Swiss wolf population – regulated coexistence between humans, predators, and livestock» is aimed in the required direction: strengthening herd protection and making regulations on culling more flexible. It is currently estimated that at least nine wolf packs are active throughout Switzerland.
Dossier: Wolf in Switzerland: Facts, Politics, and the Limits of Hunting
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. The scientific evidence is presented in the overview Studies on the Effects of Recreational Hunting.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
