Grisons reports three new packs. What the canton keeps quiet: it is not growth, it is replacement

The canton is celebrating offspring. In the first half of August 2026 the wildlife wardens confirmed three new wolf packs with at least ten pups, which means that Grisons now counts 13 packs as confirmed on paper.

The message sounds like a success. The truth is more sobering: the three “new” packs do not add to the population. They fill exactly the gaps that the kills tore open.

Three packs, three refilled gaps

Heinzenberg inhabits the area of the former Beverin pack, which after repeated interventions and the loss of central pack members was no longer confirmed as a reproducing pack. At Heinzenberg the wildlife wardens were able to confirm two pups by means of a camera trap and subsequent observations.

Giarsinom near Zernez is taking over, at least in part, the territory of the Fuorn pack in and around the Swiss National Park, which died out in 2024/25 after various kills. The new pack with at least three pups is currently ranging further north than the former pack did in summer, but the home ranges are likely to overlap in essential parts.

Madlain near Scuol occupies the area of the former Sinestra pack, whose complete removal was ordered in November 2025 and from which six wolves were later killed. Sinestra lived on both sides of the Inn. Madlain has so far claimed the southern side with at least five pups, but is likely to range on both sides in winter as well.

The wolves compensate. That is no licence to kill.

The positive: the wolves prove that they can compensate for kills. In other pack territories once destroyed, there are also signs of reproduction this summer, in Grisons as in Valais. Further such reports will follow in the coming days and weeks.

Yet it is precisely this compensation that is not an argument for the kill policy, but its death sentence. Anyone who shoots a territory empty creates a «wolf-free zone» only on paper. Experience shows that immigrating wolves quickly re-occupy it. This causes needlessly high losses, renewed conflicts and pressure on genetic diversity. A vicious circle, as the Swiss animal welfare has sharply criticised regarding the planned pack removal. Anyone who destroys pack structures and removes lead animals risks more livestock kills rather than fewer, because inexperienced young animals change their choice of prey.

And there is something else the kill advocates keep quiet about: wolf populations do not grow infinitely. The species' territorial behaviour regulates itself. If all suitable territories in a region are occupied, no further pack is added. Instead, the young wolves disperse, often over hundreds of kilometres right across the continent, until they find a free territory. The «wolf-free» territory that a kill creates is practically a magnet for dispersing animals. This is precisely why every region shot empty reliably fills up again. The kill policy therefore does not combat an uncontrollable increase, but a population that has long since limited itself.

The next massacre has already been announced

No sooner is the offspring confirmed than the unscientific authority is already preparing the next proactive massacre, just as it does with other animal species. This reveals the political absurdity of this practice: first pack structures are destroyed, then the renewed settlement of the same areas is treated as a new starting point for further kills. It is the same pattern as in the proactive wolf kills of last winter, in which 35 wolves were killed between September 2025 and January 2026. 18 of them fell victim to the so-called regulation of young animals. And it is the same logic as behind the phantom packs that Grisons wanted to release for kills as a precaution.

The same tragedy is unfolding in parallel with the Chöpfenberg pack in the canton of Schwyz: after three young wolves were already killed in 2025, up to four of this year's at least six pups may now be shot – once again it affects a pack that has only recently established itself.

Compensation is not an argument for killing. It is the proof that nature repairs what hobby hunting wantonly destroys. Anyone who shoots the same territories empty year after year and then celebrates the subsequent recolonisation as “new packs” is not practising wildlife management, but symbolic politics on the backs of the pups.

All the background in the dossier «The Wolf in Switzerland: Facts, Politics and the Limits of Hunting».