Interval hunting in Canton Bern

Interval hunting means that recreational hunting of red deer is structured more temporally, with phases of disturbance and phases of calm, instead of the longest possible continuous shooting operation.

In Graubünden, this model has been sold by authorities for years as a "recipe for success" for population regulation and hunting organization, although the scientific evidence for a clear advantage over classical big game hunting remains thin, partly because the influence of predators is insufficiently considered.

In the canton of Bern, part of this logic is now to be adopted: Red deer populations are considered locally too high, forest owners speak of significant browsing damage, and politicians demand 'more efficient' regulation. Hunting inspector Nicole Imesch is attempting to organize this balancing act: less trophy cult, more 'population reduction', more shooting of female animals and young animals.

The revolt of Bern's hobby hunters

As soon as hunting regulations are slightly tightened or clarified, parts of the organized hobby hunting community mobilize against their own hunting administration. Officially, they criticize interval hunting as 'unnecessarily complicated' and practical only for certain regions; unofficially, they are primarily disturbed that their path to the stag with large antlers is being made more difficult.

Already the new Bernese hunting regime, which clearly focuses on female animals, has led some hobby hunters to prefer staying home when no trophies are in prospect. When the hobby hunting community fights organized shooting plans and temporal structure as 'bureaucracy' and 'control', this exposes an old truth: The much-invoked 'stewardship' often ends where personal hunting pleasure is restricted.

Nicole Imesch between science and hunting lobby

Nicole Imesch is a biologist, wildlife manager and Bernese hobby hunter, with many years of experience at the Federal Office for the Environment and in forest-wildlife management. She knows the conflicts between forestry, agriculture, wildlife biology and hobby hunting lobby firsthand and has in the past expressed nuanced views on predator regulation.

It is precisely this dual role that makes the current campaign by hobby hunting associations against her so revealing: As soon as a hunting inspector represents a minimally more consistent line in red deer regulation or regarding lynx, she is publicly questioned and personally attacked. That an SVP national councilor immediately wants to deny her suitability for the office after the canton refuses an illegal lynx shooting is a prime example of political pressure on professionals who apply existing law and minimum standards in wildlife protection.

Structural problem: A system regulates itself

The current debate reveals a structural problem: The same circles that have shaped hunting framework conditions for decades are now resisting any reform that even remotely places ecological goals above hunting tradition. Interval hunting is not being fought by the associations because it would be harmful to wildlife biology, but because it brings control, predictability and transparency to an area that has so far been strongly dominated by hunting self-interest.

Anyone who seriously wants to protect forests and biodiversity cannot avoid removing hobby hunting from its privileged self-administration and defining clear objectives determined by independent science. As long as the hobby hunting community largely co-determines shooting plans, hunting regimes and control mechanisms, red deer populations, browsing problems and conflicts with predators remain a central business model of these circles: not a problem to be solved.

Why the interval hunting debate is more than technique

The dispute over interval hunting in the canton of Bern is not a technical detail of hunting technique, but a symptom of a deep conflict of interest. On one side stand forest biodiversity, climate stability and the protection of wild animals as fellow creatures; on the other, a hobby that strives for as much 'prey' as possible and as few restrictions as possible.

As long as red deer are primarily understood as a 'population to be regulated' and predators like the lynx are under massive political pressure, recreational hunting remains an instrument for defending economic and cultural claims, not a tool of modern, scientifically-based wildlife policy. The discussion in the canton Bern shows how necessary a fundamental reorientation is: away from hunting ownership logic, towards binding goals for forests, wildlife and society, and an authority that can fulfill this mandate without threats from the hunting lobby.