The Double Standards of Marcel Dettling

Marcel Dettling is a farmer who runs a typical mountain operation in the canton of Schwyz together with his family.

Editorial Wild beim Wild — 11 July 2025

In 2015, Marcel Dettling was elected to the National Council, having previously served eight years as a cantonal councillor. Since spring 2024, he has been President of the SVP Switzerland, the counterpart to the AfD in Germany – confirmed far-right.

In the media, ordinary citizens are confronted in what amounts to an endless loop with accounts of the SVP's fears about the wolf. «One no longer dares to leave the house, let alone venture into the forest with children» or «the wolf is spreading fear and terror».

Marcel Dettling has come under criticism for his statements and positions on the subject of the wolf, as he expresses controversial views in public that are interpreted differently by various interest groups. Critics accuse him of taking a rather negative stance toward the wolf.

Most of the time, it is not the wolves themselves that are frightening, but rather the poor portrayal by their critics, who use it to distract from their own shortcomings.

Marcel Dettling also belongs to those politicians like most of his SVP party who, based on their political activities in the context of animal protection in Bern, do the least for animals. He scores just as poorly as his predecessor with the dismal rating of 0/5.

At the same time, hardly a week goes by without one of these SVP politicians running afoul of the law and making headlines. One assaults sex workers, another portrays himself in a favourable light in reader comments under a false name. SVP politicians held in custody on suspicion of sexual acts involving children, an SVP politician convicted of “negligent unlawful importation of weapons into Swiss territory without authorisation,” the Geneva SVP president struck a neighbour with a pitchfork drawing blood, an SVP politician from Glarus may be referred to as a “gaga far-right extremist,” a court convicts SVP politician Naveen Hofstetter for racism — such are the headlines, or variations thereof.

Schweizer Hobby-Jäger beschäftigen Justiz

The SVP also bears significant responsibility for the fact that, for example, around 84 million farm animals in 2022 were slaughtered in Switzerland. That is 7 million animals every month, 230,500 per day, 9,600 per hour, 160 per minute and 2.7 every second! These are the same people who loudly and boorishly complain whenever wolves kill livestock in herds that are not professionally protected. Last year, a few hundred.

The fact that millions of animals are killed for meat year after year is an ongoing ethical catastrophe. No other animal welfare issue affects so many animals because of humans.

The agricultural sector that produces these mountains of meat is enormously harmful to the climate. It causes well over half of the methane emissions of the entire agricultural sector, which itself accounts for around 12.4 percent of Swiss greenhouse gases. The cultivation of animal feed also occupies around 90 % of agricultural land in this country, while an additional 1.4 million tonnes of feed are imported per year.

Thanks to improved herd protection the number of kills by wolves has decreased massively by the end of September 2024. In the canton of Graubünden by 35% and in the canton of Valais by 15%. In 2023, the number of kills nationwide had already fallen by 40% compared to 2022. The decline in livestock kills began as early as 2023, before wolves were shot preventively for the first time.

The unscientific wolf massacre during the hunting season 2024/25 has cost taxpayers millions of francs — a figure that is utterly absurd given the actual minimal damage caused by wolves, and in times of fiscal austerity.

Further articles