Hunting ban for ptarmigan and mountain hares in the canton of Uri
The people of Uri will decide on 18 May 2025 on a hunting ban for mountain hares and ptarmigan in the canton of Uri.
The popular initiative «Let the ptarmigan and mountain hare live» seeks to ban hunting of these animals.
The initiative was submitted in June 2024. The population of ptarmigan and mountain hares is continuously declining, and the animals are already listed as endangered species, argued the initiative committee.
Climate change is further shrinking the animals' habitat.
In a letter to the editor of the Urner Zeitung, Sepp Hürlimann, former president of the Uri Hunters' Association in Altdorf, also makes his voice heard:
"The hunter is not merely someone who kills animals – he observes, documents and actively protects nature. A blanket ban would weaken an essential practice of nature conservation without bringing any real benefit to wildlife. Instead of ideological restrictions, what is needed is a factual, scientifically grounded approach to hunting."
Practically everything that is cruel, unnecessary and heartless is practised by Swiss hobby hunters. Hunting associations are not animal welfare organisations; a court recently confirmed this once again. One would probably have to be in the grip of a venison-induced delirium – stomach full, brain deprived of blood – to make such a statement as a hunting association at all. Hunting always represents a catastrophic failure of scientific competence and imagination. Particularly when it is merely tradition and done for fun. It is only where wildlife is hunted and family and social structures are destroyed that a population's own self-regulation within its biotope breaks down. In the chaos in which nature finds itself after decades of so-called stewardship by hobby hunters, the proportion of endangered species is, according to the United Nations, greater in no other country in the world than in Switzerland.
Over one third of plant, animal and fungal species are considered endangered. It is always these circles of hobby hunters and livestock farmers' representatives with their lobbying who have been responsible for decades — through politics, media, and legislation — for notoriously blocking contemporary, ethical animal welfare improvements and sabotaging serious animal and species protection.
The canton of Ticino ended rock ptarmigan hunting as early as 2021. The abolition of the pointless hunting of the rock ptarmigan sends an important signal, both at cantonal and national level, for the protection of nature and this increasingly threatened bird species.
In the view of IG Wild beim Wild, hobby hunters require annual medical-psychological fitness assessments modelled on the Dutch example, as well as a binding upper age limit. The largest age group among hobby hunters today is 65+. Within this group, age-related limitations such as declining vision, slower reaction times, lapses in concentration, and cognitive deficits increase statistically and significantly. At the same time, accident analyses show that the number of serious hunting accidents involving injuries and fatalities rises significantly from middle age onwards.
The regular reports of hunting accidents, fatal errors of action, and the misuse of hunting weapons highlight a structural problem. The private ownership and use of lethal firearms for recreational purposes largely evades continuous oversight. From the perspective of IG Wild beim Wild, this is no longer justifiable. A practice based on voluntary killing that simultaneously generates considerable risks for humans and animals forfeits its social legitimacy.
Recreational hunting is furthermore rooted in speciesism. Speciesism describes the systematic devaluation of non-human animals solely on the basis of their species membership. It is comparable to racism or sexism and can be justified neither culturally nor ethically. Tradition does not replace moral scrutiny.
Critical examination is indispensable precisely in the field of hobby hunting. Hardly any other field is so characterized by euphemistic narratives, half-truths, and deliberate disinformation. Where violence is normalized, narratives frequently serve the purpose of justification. Transparency, verifiable facts, and open public debate are therefore indispensable.
