Grisons hunt 2026/27: incidents, violations and developments at a glance

Grisons is entering the 2026/27 hunting season with 4’616 planned red deer kills and the third consecutive proactive wolf regulation.

How deeply recreational hunting is culturally embedded in the canton of Grisons is shown by the article Psychology of Recreational Hunting in the Canton of Grisons.

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25.09.2026
Fri 09:01

Special hunt: The authority knows what maternal loss causes, and plans it anyway

During the high hunt, killing a lactating red deer hind costs a 150-franc fine; during the special hunt from 31 October, it counts towards quota fulfilment. In an expert assessment from March 2025, the Office for Hunting and Fisheries itself explained why: orphaned calves become socially stunted, and hinds whose calf has been shot away avoid an area in the long term. In summer they can move elsewhere; in the winter habitat only «to a limited extent». Maternal animal protection in September is thus not animal welfare but a tool to keep the hinds unable to learn until December. Eight peer-reviewed studies and the Grisons red deer dissertation demonstrate what this means for social structure, herd knowledge and winter physiology. Read more: Special hunt in Grisons: protected in September, cleared for killing in December

25.09.2026
Fri 04:35

25 September 2026: No bounty from the canton, but six months of fox hunting, and Laax pays 40 francs per animal

The canton of Zug has scrapped its fox bounty and is being dragged before the Federal Supreme Court by six recreational hunters as a result (Zug recreational hunters challenge follow-up search obligation and abolition of fox bounties before Federal Supreme Court), while Valais continues to pay 15 francs per fox and 20 per badger. And what about Grisons? The cantonal ordinance on hunting operations does not provide for a kill bounty. But that does not mean no bounty money flows in the canton: in 2019, the municipal council of Laax decided to pay a bounty of 40 francs for every fox and every badger that local recreational hunters kill within municipal territory, paid out by the municipal office after inspection of the carcasses (Grisons: Stop the fox and badger massacre). This was a decision that was anything but in step with the times even back then: almost three times higher than the Valais cantonal bounty, adopted in a tourist municipality that markets itself as close to nature.

What the canton does not regulate with money, it regulates with time. Foxes and badgers may be hunted during the high hunt in September, during the low hunt from 1 October to 30 November, and during nocturnal wait hunting from November to the end of February — in eight hunting districts from 1 to 14 October even without any time restriction at all. Six months of pursuit for a predator. The tally according to the 2025 annual report of the Office for Hunting and Fishing: 2,131 foxes and 431 badgers in 2024, 2,010 foxes in 2023. The canton has not even published the 2025/26 wait-hunting figures yet.

The fact that this effort is biologically futile is confirmed by the study commissioned by the canton of Zug from the SWILD office in 2026. Dr Claudia Kistler and Dr Fabio Bontadina concluded in May 2026 that licence hunting of foxes neither sustainably reduces populations nor curbs wildlife diseases: hunted populations compensate for losses through greater offspring numbers, higher survival rates and immigration (Canton of Zug stops promoting fox hunting). The former president of the Grisons Cantonal Licence Hunters' Association, Robert Brunold, summed up the low hunt on fox, badger and hare himself: «not necessary, but justified» (Grisons hunting: banned, unless it's useful). Zug has drawn consequences from the facts. Grisons continues to manage a hobby. Background: End fox hunting and dossier «The fox in Switzerland».

Sources: Canton of Grisons, Ordinance on Hunting Operations (BR 740.025); Office for Hunting and Fishing Grisons, Annual Report 2025; Municipality of Laax, Official Gazette of 25 October 2019; SWILD, Fox Hunting in the Canton of Zug, May 2026.

18.09.2026
Fri 11:08

Grisons recreational hunters do the maths: is the September red deer kill quota achievable?

A recreational hunter from Grisons has sent the editorial team a model calculation according to which, in 2026, only around 3,419 red deer would be huntable, against a kill quota of 4,616. Recalculating shows: even without a deduction for the national park, protected areas and wildlife refuges, his figures only yield 4,315 huntable red deer. What matters, then, is what proportion of the population may legally be shot in September at all. The Office for Hunting and Fishing is legally required to record the age and sex structure of the population, but does not publish it. Criticism of the special hunt targeting mother animals and calves comes from within the hunting community itself.Read the article with nine questions to the AJF.

16.09.2026
WED 07:59

Klosters: Section publishes trophy selfie despite code of conduct

The Klosters hunting association, a section of the BKPJV, posted a selfie on Facebook of a recreational hunter with the head of a killed chamois, captioned with «Weidmannsheil» and a clover emoji. The BKPJV code of conduct, to which the section is subject, explicitly prohibits such staged depictions. Background and evidence in the article Hunting code Grisons: The contradiction within its own ranks.

15.09.2026
TUE 08:32

Wolf regulation extended to 17 of 18 packs, benefits unproven

According to a report by the «Südostschweiz», all regulation requests in Grisons have now been approved: 17 of the 18 known packs may be decimated by up to two-thirds of their pups by the end of January 2027, and the Calderas pack is to be eliminated entirely. A public overview by the federal government of all approvals is still lacking. At the same time, Sven Buchmann of the KORA foundation, which conducts the national wolf monitoring on behalf of the FOEN, admits that direct scientific evidence for the claimed protective effect of pup kills is scarce. The effect is only being examined in a project running until 2029. Moreover, the regulation is not carried out out of ecological necessity, but as a socio-political measure. Of all packs, it was precisely the Calderas and Muchetta packs that became conspicuous after pup regulation, according to Buchmann. Livestock losses in Grisons had already declined before the preventive regulation began, and the AJF itself names herd protection as a major contributing factor. Decisions on kills are made by an agency leadership that itself belongs to the recreational hunting community; authorised recreational hunters are involved during the high hunt and special hunt. The Bern Convention has been conducting an investigation procedure into Swiss wolf policy since December 2024. In detail: Wolf regulation in Grisons: benefit of pup kills not proven

12.09.2026
SAT 05:55

«Not an anti-wolf position»? The association's stance says otherwise

The most senior recreational hunter in Grisons, Benjamin Hefti, asserts in the «Südostschweiz» that the Grisons recreational hunters and the cantonal association do not hold an anti-wolf stance. He also claims to know of no hunters who have stopped buying a licence due to competition from wolves. Neither claim holds up on closer inspection: the fact that Hefti knows of no such case only proves that he doesn’t know of one. And the claimed neutrality stands in clear contradiction to the repeated demands of the Grisons Cantonal Licence Hunters’ Association for extensive wolf kills, as traced by the article «Grisons licence hunters: Tarzisius Caviezel departs, wolf policy remains» . An association must be judged by its political line, not by its self-portrayal. The detailed fact check dissects Hefti’s statements point by point.

11.09.2026
FRI 03:55

At 8.20 pm, according to a report, a shot was fired in the Rueun area on 9 September 2026, around 40 minutes after sunset (in Rueun that day at approximately 7.42 pm) and effectively at nightfall. The Grisons high hunt permits recreational hunting from 6.00 am to 8.30 pm.

However, the timing is not merely a formal legal problem. In such light conditions, a clean, animal-welfare-compliant shot can hardly be guaranteed. If an animal is only wounded, a follow-up search in the dark would realistically only take place the following morning. For the injured animal, this means an entire night with untreated gunshot wounds, pain and mortal fear before it is found and put out of its misery — or dies an agonising death. In Grisons, around a thousand follow-up searches are needed every year, and in some years the success rate has been just under sixty percent.

The case once again raises the question of shooting times and their enforcement. More on this in the detailed article.

09.09.2026
Wed 17:42

Surcasti: Recreational hunter fell to his death

In Surcasti, a 66-year-old recreational hunter was found dead on Tuesday during the Grisons high hunt. The man had not turned up at a meeting point as arranged in the morning. His fellow hunters then launched a search and alerted the Grisons cantonal police.

Shortly before midday, the recreational hunter was found dead in steep, rugged terrain. According to initial findings by the Grisons cantonal police, he fell to his death. A Rega helicopter with alpine specialists was deployed for the recovery. Police and the public prosecutor are investigating the exact circumstances and the cause of death.More on this in the detailed article.

08.09.2026
Tue 08:00

Hunting offices under scrutiny: horse shot dead, two deaths in Ticino

On 7 September, a recreational hunter in Avers shot dead a horse he had mistaken for a red deer. The Grisons hunting and fishing office describes this as an «isolated case» and points to the responsibility of the shooter. The official figures, however, reveal a recurring problem: in 2016, with 5’512 high hunt licences issued, 1’201 fines and reports were recorded, 1’013 of them for misfires; in 2017 there were 1’384 incidents, 1’146 of them misfires. Statistically, that amounts to one registered violation for roughly every four to five hunting participants.

At the same time, two recreational hunters died in falls on the first weekend of the Ticino hunting season. Across Switzerland, a hunting accident occurs on average every 29 hours. The cantonal hunting offices cannot reduce their responsibility to the individual finger on the trigger or the individual step taken in the terrain: they set hunting seasons and hunting areas, issue licences, define requirements, plan kill quotas and organise a paid leisure activity involving lethal weapons.

IG Wild beim Wild calls for the abolition of private recreational hunting. Where interventions in wild animal populations are genuinely unavoidable, they should be carried out by professionally trained, state-run wildlife wardens, following the Geneva model. For as long as recreational hunting continues to exist, annual medical-psychological fitness assessments, recurring practical safety tests and a binding upper age limit are also required. More on this in the detailed article.

08.09.2026
Tue 05:11

In Grisons there are no personal hunting grounds. Yet some recreational hunters treat valleys, high seats and wildlife trails as if they were their private property. Wild animals belong to no one, private land is not open to hunting for many owners, and at the same time the canton proactively clears wolf cubs for killing. What is needed is protection instead of recreational hunting: hunting-free private land, herd protection and full transparency on kills. More on this in the detailed article.

08.09.2026
Tue 05:11

The new hunting code of the Grisons Licence Hunting Association demands respect for wild animals and criticises staged trophy photos. At the same time, a section president and training coordinator is under fire for publicly circulated photos featuring killed wild animals – a glaring contradiction of the association's own rhetoric. More on this in the detailed article.

07.09.2026
Mon 11:02

Avers: Recreational hunter kills horse instead of red deer

In Avers Cröt, a recreational hunter shot a horse on Sunday morning. Shortly after 6 a.m., he was recreational hunting at the location Indercröt and fired a shot at an animal in a meadow. Only afterwards did he realise that it was not a red deer but a horse. He immediately reported the mix-up to the wildlife wardens.

The recreational hunter, who has confessed, will be reported to the public prosecutor of Grisons. His hunting licence was withdrawn on the spot.

A horse in an open meadow, mistaken for a red deer in the first light of dawn: the case is part of a long series of mistaken-identity shootings in which the duty to identify — that is, the reliable identification of the target before firing — was disregarded. As recently as 2021, a recreational hunter in Chapella in the Upper Engadine mistook a roe buck for an Icelandic horse and injured the animal so severely that it had to be put down.

07.09.2026
Mon 04:32

Game meat as “homeland on a plate”: what the food reviews conceal about the health risk

At the start of the season, the media and restaurants are staging the Grisons game dish as tradition, yet warnings from the authorities are consistently missing. The WHO cancer research agency IARC classifies processed meat such as game sausage or game ham as a Group 1 carcinogen, in the same evidence category as tobacco smoke, asbestos and arsenic; red meat, which includes game meat, is classified as “probably carcinogenic” (Group 2A). There are also microbiological risks: blood clotting begins immediately after the shot, and in the Alpine region it often takes hours until recovery, during which the intestinal barrier breaks down and germs can migrate into the meat. The Swiss Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO), Germany's BfR and France's ANSES explicitly advise caution for vulnerable groups. And one in three inspected businesses in Grisons and Glarus lied about provenance. More on this in the detailed article.

05.09.2026
SAT 08:05

Silencers banned, unless they're useful: Grisons' hunting rules contradict themselves

Grisons fundamentally bans night vision and thermal imaging devices in recreational hunting, requires a permit for silencers, and prohibits luring hoofed game. Yet these very limits fall away as soon as it suits the canton: thermal imaging technology is relaxed for the night hunt on wild boar in the Mesolcina, the ban on luring is entirely absent for wait hunting on fox, and the bait station with animal bait remains permitted while baiting for red deer is banned. The same applies to mobile phones, which the official questionnaire once explicitly banned for hunting purposes, but today there is no clear wording, even though real-time coordination via mobile phone can turn an entire hunting party into a tracking unit. The contradiction becomes clearest in the canton's own admission: the low hunt on fox, badger and hare, which includes wait hunting, was itself described by former Grisons association president Robert Brunold as “not necessary, but justified.” A set of rules that organises an unnecessary hobby hunt down to the last detail does not protect wild animals – it administers a hobby. More on this in the detailed article.

04.09.2026
Fri 06:46

AJF co-director justifies wolf kills, but is himself a recreational hunter

Adrian Arquint, co-director of the Office for Hunting and Fisheries, defends the third wolf regulation as proportionate: falling numbers of livestock kills, he says, are proof of the effectiveness of the kills. In fact, the kill rate was already falling before the introduction of preventive regulation in 2023, largely due to expanded herd protection. His own office is also requesting the complete removal of the Calderas pack, while Arquint simultaneously claims the goal is to act “without wiping out entire packs.” Particularly telling: Arquint is himself a passionate recreational hunter and closely intertwined with the cantonal licence hunting association. The fate of the Grisons wolves is thus being decided not by an independent wildlife authority, but by an office leadership with a personal interest in hunting roe deer and red deer, the wolf's natural food competitors. More on this in the detailed article.

04.09.2026
Fri 05:35

Five myths fact-checked: what the Grisons hunting interview conceals

At the start of the season, the new licence hunting association president Benjamin Hefti and a cultural anthropologist paint a conciliatory picture of recreational hunting in the “Südostschweiz” newspaper. The fact-check dissects five central claims: the formula “Bio Bio Plus” for game meat is hunting marketing, not proof of quality – processed game meat is classified by the WHO cancer research agency as a Group 1 carcinogen. The regulation argument regarding red deer is circular reasoning, because the decline in population coincides in time with the return of the wolf and lynx. Over 1’000 reports and fines are issued annually against Grisons recreational hunters. And the low hunt on fox, badger and hare was itself described by the association's own former president Robert Brunold as “not necessary, but justified.” More on this in the detailed fact-check.

02.09.2026
Wed 06:08

War in the forest: it's not recreational hunting that adapts, but everyone else

From September into winter, hunting takes place in Grisons, yet the annual safety advisories are not aimed at recreational hunters but at hikers, mountain bikers and dog owners, who are the ones expected to adapt. Former association president Robert Brunold has himself described the low hunt as “not necessary, but justified” – an admission that licence hunting is not about ecological management, but about leisure interest. A former head of the cantonal hunting office openly said it is “especially satisfying” to shoot an animal “you know.” Twice the Federal Supreme Court had to correct Grisons politics, because the government and parliament had wrongly declared hunting-critical popular initiatives invalid; in one case, parliament was even withheld an exonerating statement from the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN). More on this in the detailed article.

01.09.2026
Tue 08:30

4’616 planned red deer kills: the canton still owes proof of necessity

Grisons is planning to kill 4’616 red deer in 2026. The figure is transparently communicated, but that does not make it proof of ecological necessity. The special hunt in late autumn is not an exception, but a firmly planned second instrument for whenever the high hunt fails to meet its targets. During the 2022 high hunt, roughly one in ten kills involved an animal that was not legally huntable. At the same time, the canton acknowledges that wolf and lynx reduce calf mortality, yet continues to classify its own population decline as a success of recreational hunting. More on this in the detailed article.

28.08.2026
Fri 14:30

Third wolf regulation despite halved livestock kills: killing as a precaution

From 1 September 2026, the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) is authorising kills in twelve Grisons wolf packs, with the Calderas pack to be completely removed. Livestock kills had more than halved by the end of July compared to the previous year, yet the quota remains fully exhausted regardless: killing no longer occurs because damage has occurred, but before it could occur. Just three days earlier, the canton had celebrated the discovery of three “new” packs, which in fact merely resettle territories of previously eliminated packs. The same contradiction is evident across Switzerland: despite 226 wolves killed over three regulation periods, the number of packs kept rising, from 35 to 40. More kills, more packs, no effect in the claimed sense. More on this in the detailed article.

Background

• Val Fex: kill permit expired – open questions on enforcement practice
• Grisons recreational hunter convicted after wolf kill in Puschlav
• Dossier: Wolf in Switzerland: facts, politics and the limits of hunting
• Dossier: Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland