Recreational hunters now hunt wolves from the national park
It is now confirmed: the canton of Graubünden will cull the wolf pack that has its territory in the national park in its entirety
The Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) has approved the second application from the canton of Graubünden for the removal of the Lenzerhorn and Fuorn wolf packs, as well as the regulation of two thirds of the young animals in the Calanda and Jatzhorn wolf packs.
Recreational hunters will be included in the regulation of the Lenzerhorn and Fuorn wolf packs from Thursday, 26 September 2024.
As a first step, only the young animals may be shot until the end of October, and then all wolves until the end of January 2025. However, shooting is only permitted outside the protected national park.
The pack consists of 14 wolves in total, of which 6 are cubs. The main target area is around the Ofenpass, because two cattle kills allegedly took place there a long time ago. For one of the kills, there is still no DNA analysis available — a fact that has led the national park to criticise the senseless activism of the authorities.
The extermination of the entire pack was questionable from a wildlife biology perspective, national park director Ruedi Haller had stated at the beginning of September.
«In the event of a decision to remove the Fuorn wolf pack, the legal mandate to protect nature in the Swiss National Park would be undermined,» the research commission had recently warned. Even if the pack were shot outside the park, the impact on the legally enshrined natural development of nature in Switzerland's only wilderness reserve would be considerable.
Dossier: Wolf Switzerland: Facts, politics and the limits of hunting
Participation campaign: Due to the catastrophic policies of Federal Councillor Albert Rösti (SVP) and the recently approved wolf culling in Switzerland, submit a remission request to your municipality for federal and cantonal taxes. You can download the template letter here: https://wildbeimwild.com/ein-appell-fuer-eine-veraenderung-in-der-schweiz/
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In our dossiers on the criticism of recreational hunting gather fact-checks, analyses and background reports. 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.
