Driven hunts with non-lethal ammunition demanded
The National Council wants to deter wolves in order to keep them away from livestock herds in the Alps.
On 19.6.2025 it adopted a motion calling for driven hunts by herd patrols.
These should also be permitted to fire non-lethal ammunition.
With 95 votes to 87, with 4 abstentions, the National Council voted in favour of the motion from the Centre Party faction. The issue concerns supplementary measures for herd protection, said Benjamin Roduit (Centre/VS). The motion also calls for the financing of deterrence operations. The Council of States must now decide.
The cantons of Valais, Ticino and Graubünden had been severely affected by natural disasters in recent years and months, Roduit added. They should not also have to deal with damage caused by too many wolves.
Environment Minister Albert Rösti spoke out against the motion. Experience had shown that rubber bullets were only effective from a distance of less than 25 metres, he said. Deterrence would therefore have little effect, because people rarely came that close to wolves.
The provisions for preventing wolf damage had been tightened since the motion was submitted, and even some environmental organisations had accepted them, Rösti added. Should further measures prove necessary, the Federal Council would propose them, the Environment Minister assured the chamber.
Wolves can today be massacred preventively, before they cause any damage.
Take action: Demand from your municipality, on the grounds of the catastrophic policies of Federal Councillor Albert Rösti (SVP), a tax remission request for federal and cantonal taxes in light of the recently approved culling of wolves in Switzerland. 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 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.
