Horse shot dead, two deaths in Ticino: Hunting authorities cannot shift the blame

A horse is mistaken for a red deer and shot dead in the Avers valley in Grisons.

In Ticino, two hobby hunters die within a few hours of each other in falls on the first weekend of the hunting season. Both events reveal what hunting authorities like to individualise: it is the individual person who has their finger on the trigger and who decides on the next step in the field. Yet it is the cantonal offices for hunting and fisheries that create, authorise and finance the system in which these risks arise in the first place.

Hunting is not a private hike or a casual leisure activity. It is a state-regulated, fee-based system organised by the authorities, in which private individuals pursue and kill wild animals with weapons. Where this system leads to mistaken kills, wounded animals, injuries or deaths, responsibility does not end with the individual hobby hunter.

Horse instead of red deer in Avers

Early on Sunday morning, a horse was killed by a hunting shot while grazing in a pasture in the Avers hamlet of Cröt, GR. The shooter had apparently mistaken the animal for a red deer. He reported the incident, after which his hunting licence was withdrawn. For the farm concerned and the people who cared for the horse, an animal remains dead – because a person fired under conditions in which he had evidently not clearly identified his target.

The Grisons Office for Hunting and Fisheries told Blick that shooting times are set out in the hunting operating regulations and are based on the seasonal light conditions. Ultimately, however, it is up to the hunter themselves to decide from what point they can correctly identify an animal. At the same time, the office described the incident as an «isolated case».

This explanation is inadequate.

Of course, the shooter bears immediate responsibility: anyone who is not certain which animal is standing in front of them, whether it may be shot, and whether there is a safe backstop, must not fire. In the case of the horse in Avers, this duty was clearly not fulfilled.

But when the authority says that responsibility lies with the hunter, it only describes the final second before the shot. It conceals its own role. The authority sets the rules, the hunting periods and the kill quota planning. It grants hunting permits, defines the requirements for hunting, administers licences and organises a form of hunting in which thousands of leisure participants are out in the field with rifles within a short period of time. Whoever sets this framework cannot absolve themselves of responsibility for its foreseeable consequences.

«Isolated case» versus its own statistics

Mistaking a horse for a red deer in this specific form may be rare. However, mistaken kills, rule violations and wounded animals are not an exceptional phenomenon in Grisons.

In 2016, 5,512 people took part in the Grisons high hunt. In the same year, the authority recorded 1,098 fines and 103 reports for violations of hunting legislation: a total of 1,201 incidents. Of these, 1,013 cases involved mistaken kills.

A year later, the figures were even higher. In 2017, 5,532 people took part in the high hunt. The authority recorded 1,280 fines and 104 reports, a total of 1,384 incidents. Of these, 1,146 cases involved mistaken kills.

These figures do not mean that one in five people was personally fined or reported; several incidents may involve the same person. As a system-wide balance sheet, however, they are unambiguous: in 2016, there was one recorded fine or report for every five hunting participants; in 2017, for roughly every four. Anyone who dismisses a fatal mistaken kill as an «isolated case» given such figures is talking about the special case of the horse – but not about the documented error rate in hunting operations.

There is also the suffering of animals after being shot. In 2016, 1,242 follow-up searches by tracking dog handlers had to be carried out in Grisons. Only 59 percent of these were successful. Not every follow-up search necessarily involves a wounded wild animal, as control searches and traffic accidents are also included in the figures. Nevertheless, the number shows how often animals have to be searched for and how frequently their fate remains unresolved.

SRF reported that in 2016, 516 red deer had to be searched for after being shot – 9.5 percent of all red deer kills. Nearly half of these animals were not found. Over several years, the proportion of red deer requiring a follow-up search after being shot ranged between 8.8 and 11 percent.

Hunting is often described as an «ethical craft». A craft, however, would have to be judged by its reliability: by precise work, clear quality standards, effective controls and consistent consequences for mistakes. When there is one recorded fine or report for every four to five hunting participants, and roughly one in ten red deer requires a follow-up search, describing it as a reliable craft is not convincing.

Anyone who records 1,201 fines and reports among 5,512 hunting participants cannot credibly speak of a few regrettable exceptions. Imagine a chef where every fifth meal had to be complained about due to a serious error. He would not be regarded as a master of his craft, but would lose his job. In hobby hunting, however, comparable errors are downplayed as «isolated cases» – even though bullets, injured animals and avoidable dangers to people are at stake.

Two deaths on the first weekend

The risks of this hunting practice affect not only wild animals, pets and livestock. They also affect the hunters themselves.

On the first weekend of the 2026/27 Ticino hunting season, two hobby hunters died within a few hours of each other in mountainous terrain. On 5 September, a 69-year-old Swiss man fell on a slope in the area of Biasca near the Riale Crenone. He died despite resuscitation attempts. The following day, a 54-year-old man from the Locarnese region was found dead after a search operation on the Pizzo Sassariente. Here too, the authorities' initial reconstruction suggests a fatal fall during the hunt. The exact circumstances of both deaths are being investigated.

These deaths must not be instrumentalised. They are, first and foremost, human tragedies that affect the relatives and those close to the deceased. Precisely for this reason, it would be wrong to dismiss them as regrettable private accidents with no social or political context.

Hunting takes people with weapons, equipment and often heavy loads into steep, rough and sometimes remote terrain. It involves physical strain, time pressure, twilight, changing weather and the demand to search for, pursue and recover animals. The risk of accidents is not an abstract possibility but is statistically documented.

In Switzerland, purely statistically, a hunting accident occurs every 29 hours. Around 300 accidents recognised under the Accident Insurance Act (UVG) are recorded each year in the context of hobby hunting. The Bureau for the Prevention of Accidents recorded over 75 deaths in a hunting context for the years 2000 to 2019. This figure is not a complete historical total: it does not cover the preceding decades in full, nor the most recent period, and it does not represent all groups of people equally. Retirees, self-employed people and other individuals without compulsory accident insurance are not fully captured in the UVG data. The real number of accidents and deaths is therefore higher.

State responsibility for a hobby

The cantons do not literally send anyone hunting. Adults voluntarily purchase a hunting licence. But this voluntary nature does not absolve the state of its responsibility.

An office for hunting and fisheries decides under which conditions a hunt is even possible. It sets hunting seasons and hunting areas, regulates permitted weapons and ammunition, determines training and examination requirements, administers permits and licences, and plans kill quotas. The cantons turn the killing of wild animals into an administratively controlled practice and charge fees for it.

In doing so, they bear a shared political, organisational and safety-related responsibility. This does not mean that an office causes an individual mis-kill or a specific fall. It means: whoever enables and regulates a risky system must limit, document and publicly account for its foreseeable risks.

In the case of police, fire brigade, rescue services or military operations, the state would not delegate dangerous tasks to thousands of private individuals as a fee-based leisure model. There, clear command and responsibility structures apply, along with professional training, periodic qualification, deployment planning, medical requirements, equipment checks and institutional accountability.

With hobby hunting, the construction is different: the state hands over a public task – insofar as interventions in wildlife populations are necessary at all – to private licence holders. The risks remain largely with the individual, while the administration invokes personal responsibility when mistakes occur. It is precisely this delegation of responsibility that must be politically questioned.

Especially among older hunters, the question of binding, recurring medical and practical fitness tests arises. A 69-year-old person is not fundamentally unfit to move around in the mountains. But hunting combines weapons, heavy equipment, sometimes solo excursions, twilight, rough terrain and psychological strain. What is needed, therefore, is not blanket age discrimination, but comprehensible and regular safety standards – regardless of age and not based on mere self-declaration.

Abolition of hobby hunting

The death of a horse in Avers and the two fatalities in Ticino are not the same event. However, they share a common political question: who takes responsibility when a state-organised hobby system creates foreseeable dangers for humans and animals?

The hunter in Avers was responsible for his shot. The two men in Ticino bore responsibility for their personal decisions in the terrain. But responsibility does not end there. The cantonal offices for hunting and fisheries decide on hunting seasons, hunting areas, licences, training requirements, kill quota planning, safety rules and controls. They organise, authorise and finance a hunting practice in which thousands of private individuals shoot at wild animals with lethal firearms.

An office cannot on the one hand plan hunts, sell licences, set kill quotas and organise a seasonal hunting event – and on the other hand, in the event of every accident, mis-kill and avoidable suffering, refer solely to the individual hobby hunter. Whoever organises the system must also bear its record.

The IG Wild beim Wild therefore demands the abolition of private hobby hunting. Where interventions in wildlife populations are demonstrably unavoidable, they must be carried out by a professionally trained, state-employed wildlife wardens service – following the model of the canton of Geneva.

Geneva abolished private hunting in 1974. Since then, necessary interventions have been prepared, carried out, documented and institutionally accounted for by specialists from the «Police de la nature». This model replaces a seasonal mass event involving thousands of private individuals with clearly defined responsibilities, professional training, controlled operations and public accountability.

Professional wildlife management, however, does not begin with the rifle. It starts with prevention: protecting and restoring habitats, wildlife corridors, reducing traffic accidents, effectively protecting agricultural crops with non-lethal means, and promoting natural predators. Only when an intervention has been professionally proven to be unavoidable may it take place under clear criteria, independent control, complete transparency and with the aim of minimal suffering.

As long as hobby hunting exists

As long as private hunting is not abolished, the IG Wild beim Wild demands for hobby hunters annual medical-psychological fitness assessments following the Dutch model, as well as a binding maximum age limit.

The largest age group among hobby hunters today is 65+. In this age group, age-related limitations such as declining eyesight, slower reaction times, reduced concentration and cognitive deficits statistically increase. This does not mean that every older person is unfit. But fitness for an activity involving lethal firearms, twilight, steep terrain, heavy equipment, physical strain and decisions under time pressure must not be assumed to last a lifetime as a matter of course.

A hunting examination passed once is not a lifelong safety guarantee. Anyone who regularly shoots at animals with hunting weapons must repeatedly demonstrate their physical, sensory and psychological fitness. Binding vision, reaction and coordination tests, medical assessments, and independent psychological evaluations are necessary. In the event of limited fitness, a licence must be suspended or revoked.

Safety does not arise from appeals to individual reason, but from binding rules, independent controls and professional accountability. The answer to fatal mistakes must not always be «an isolated case».

Violence is not a tradition

Hobby Hunting is based on speciesism. Speciesism refers to the systematic devaluation of non-human animals solely because of their species. The interests of wild animals in life, physical integrity and protection are thereby subordinated to a human leisure activity, tradition or trophy culture.

A tradition does not replace moral scrutiny. The fact that a practice has existed for a long time and is culturally established does not make it ethically justifiable. Hunting associations speak of «game husbandry», «fair chase» and «connection to nature». These terms do not change the fact that humans voluntarily pursue, injure and kill animals.

The case in Avers shows the brutal reality of a mis-kill. The follow-up search statistics also show that the promise of a quick and controlled death is regularly not fulfilled. Wild animals flee after being shot, are searched for, and sometimes remain missing. Domestic and livestock animals can become targets. And the hunters themselves are also injured or killed in a high-risk system.

Transparency instead of hunting myths

Hardly any other field is as strongly shaped by glossing-over narratives, half-truths and institutional self-exoneration as hobby hunting. When a horse is shot, the responsible office speaks of an «isolated case». When people die during a hunt, individual risk is cited. When wounded wild animals are not found, they often remain merely a figure in a follow-up search statistic.

The regular reports of hunting accidents, mis-kills, injured animals and the misuse of hunting weapons point to a structural problem. The private ownership and use of lethal firearms for leisure purposes largely escapes continuous and independent control.

From the perspective of the IG Wild beim Wild, this is no longer justifiable. A practice based on voluntary killing, which at the same time creates considerable risks for humans, domestic and livestock animals as well as wild animals, loses its social legitimacy.

Complete, publicly accessible statistics on hunting accidents, deaths, injuries, mis-kills, follow-up searches, animals not found, weapons violations and sanctions are therefore needed. And the political will is needed to replace private hobby hunting with professional, scientifically controlled and prevention-oriented wildlife management following the Geneva model.