Grisons recreational hunters do the maths: nine questions on the 2026 red deer kill quota

The letter reached the editorial team in mid-September, in the middle of the Grisons high hunt.

The sender is known to the editorial team and describes himself as a passionate Grisons recreational hunter with “very serious doubts about the system”. He writes, by his own account, also on behalf of his circle of fellow hunters. Enclosed was a model calculation entitled “How many red deer can actually be hunted in 2026?” Its result: around 3,419 huntable red deer. The cantonal kill quota calls for 4,616 red deer, of which 2,514 female, based on an estimated spring population of 13,485.

The author explicitly presents his calculation as a contribution to the discussion and invites the Office for Hunting and Fishing (AJF) to review the assumptions and figures from a technical standpoint. Wild beim Wild has done the maths as well. The result raises questions that only the AJF can answer.

How the calculation is structured

The model subtracts 2,800 red deer in protected areas from the spring population: 2,000 in the Swiss National Park, 600 in wildlife sanctuaries, and 200 in a federal hunting ban area. For the remainder, it applies huntability quotas: 30 percent for male and 34 percent for female red deer. The rationale: calves, suckling hinds and mature stags are protected during the high hunt.

What is an assumption and what is a measured value

The author discloses where he works with assumptions: a 50/50 gender ratio, ten equally sized age classes, and populations in refuges and protected areas, which are based on his own long-standing observations. He did not find an official breakdown of the population by age and sex in publicly accessible sources. According to his own statement, he deliberately sets several values in favour of the AJF, such as the huntable share of cows. He himself also points out the seasonality of the national park population.

Two points need to be added. The protected areas are not fully closed off: the 2025 hunting operating regulations list dozens of wildlife protection areas with partial openings, where red deer may be shot from up to 150 metres from the boundary throughout the entire high hunt. And after the rut, the national park's red deer winter on the sunny slopes of the Engadin, the Münstertal and the Vinschgau, meaning that some of them are outside the canton.

What the calculation reveals

Recalculating shows that the protected areas are not actually decisive for the result. Using the recreational hunter's quotas, but without any deduction for protected areas, this yields 4’315 huntable red deer. That, too, is below the plan. The result therefore does not depend on the protected areas, but on the question of what proportion of the population may legally be shot at all in September.

This is precisely the data the AJF should have. The cantonal hunting ordinance requires that population surveys record the size, sex and age structure of wildlife populations. This structure is not published. What is published is a total figure, more than a third of which is an estimate: in 2025, 8’711 red deer were counted, but the population was estimated at 13’585. The national guideline on red deer hunting planning states that the unrecorded number is estimated by the wildlife wardens.

If the plan is structurally unachievable in September, then the special hunt is not a corrective for weak high hunts, but planned in from the outset. This is supported by the fact that the national park's red deer only move into huntable areas after the rut. The 2026 special hunt is scheduled, depending on the region, from 31 October to 20 December. Our analysis shows how this two-stage system works «4’616 red deer: What Grisons' hunting planning reveals and what it does not prove».

The contradiction concerning cow and calf

During the high hunt, the kill of a lactating red deer cow or a red deer calf counts as a mis-kill and is fined (as of 2025: 150 francs each). A few weeks later, cows and calves are released for the special hunt. The recreational hunter writes: if calves without a mother were not at risk, there would be no reason for a fine in September. He calls the intervention into the winter refuges "ethically indefensible". He and his colleagues would never shoot mother animals during the special hunt, "but unfortunately not everyone is so selective". The criticism of the special hunt thus does not come from outside, but from within the hunting community itself.

The wolf in the official calculation

The model explicitly excludes the influence of predators. In official planning, it does play a role. In regions with wolf packs, the office writes, the offspring and growth rate of red deer is reduced by the wolf. In the Surselva, in central Grisons and on the Heinzenberg, the proportion of female red deer in the kill quota was therefore lowered from 60 to 50 percent. More on this in our article «The wolf is hunting along» and in the Wolf dossier.

And the money?

The recreational hunter also raises the question of the system's financial incentives. The fee structure is publicly accessible: a licence fee of 50 to 200 francs is due for the special hunt, and for hoofed game killed there is usually an additional kill fee of up to 6 francs per kilogram. Whether this generates net revenue and whether it influences the planning cannot be assessed from the outside. Only the canton can provide information on this.

Nine questions for the AJF

1. How is the spring 2026 population composed by sex and age class, and why is this structure not published?
2. What proportion of the population is legally huntable during the high hunt? Does the AJF assume from the outset that the quota cannot be fulfilled in September?
3. What are the estimated population figures and the unrecorded rate for 2026 in each of the 21 red deer regions, how is the unrecorded rate derived, and who verifies it independently?
4. How many red deer are present in September in the National Park, in federal hunting ban areas and in wildlife refuges, and how are they accounted for in the spring population?
5. How many lactating cows, non-lactating cows, yearling hinds and calves were killed during the special hunt over the past five years?
6. How does the AJF justify, in wildlife-biological terms, that killing a nursing cow is fined in September but permitted in November? What requirements apply, and how are they monitored?
7. Are calves recorded that are left behind or die after their mother is killed?
8. What independent studies support the assumption that the special hunt is compatible with the winter rest of red deer?
9. How high were the revenues from special hunting licences, kill fees and wrong-kill fines from 2021 to 2025, and how high were the full costs of the special hunt?

The ongoing events of the season are documented by our Grisons Tracker 2026/27, scientific background can be found on the page «Hunting Fact-Checked». Further articles in the category Hunting.