New wolf packs confirmed in Switzerland

New wolf packs were documented in the Grisons, Vaud and Valais in 2019. Seven years later, around 43 packs and roughly 350 wolves live in Switzerland.

Wild beim Wild Editorial Team — 24 August 2019

Based on camera traps, a game warden has established that seven wolf pups are currently roaming the Valais Chablais, accompanied by a mother animal and a male. The wolf pack is present in the area of the municipalities of Vionnaz and Vouvry, as the Valais State Chancellery announced.

Following the permanent wolf presence recorded in this region since January 2019, the Office for Hunting, Fishing and Wildlife had reinforced the monitoring arrangement and increased the number of camera traps. In addition, two audio recorders were installed to detect possible reproduction.

At the end of winter, the she-wolf F43 and the male wolf M88 had been recorded several times in the area. The two are presumed to have sired the wolf offspring. However, this is not known with certainty, as wildlife biologist Yvon Crettenand, employed by the Canton of Valais, said.

Another male wolf (M89), recorded in March in the valley plain of Vouvry, has since migrated to the Canton of Vaud. The seven young animals in the Chablais are currently the only formal proof of a reproduction of the wolf population in Valais this year.

Grisons

In the Grisons, the wildlife wardens have sighted three young wolves in the area of the municipality of Obersaxen Mundaun.

These are likely young animals of a previously unknown wolf pack, as the Grisons Office for Hunting and Fishing announced.

Along with the three young animals, two adult animals could be observed. The catchment area of this new wolf pack is likely to encompass the area from Piz Mundaun to Piz Nadels and the surrounding valleys.

Thus, four packs are now resident in the Canton of Grisons, currently with at least 26 wolves.

Vaud

The birth of at least three wolf pups was documented in the Vaud Jura this summer thanks to a video trap. This is the first time in 150 years that there has been a wolf pack in the Canton of Vaud again.

It is the eighth wolf pack documented in Switzerland, as the canton of Vaud and the Kora Foundation for Predator Ecology and Wildlife Management announced. According to the figures, the canton of Grisons is home to four wolf packs, Valais two and Ticino one.

With the latest offspring in the Marchairuz region of the Vaud Jura, the number of wolves in the territory of the canton of Vaud has risen to a total of seven since the beginning of 2019.

Seven years later: eight packs have become over 40

When this article appeared in 2019, the Vaud pack was considered the eighth documented in Switzerland, and four packs with around 26 wolves lived in Grisons. Since then, the population has multiplied. In the 2025/26 monitoring year, the KORA Foundation documented around 43 packs and about 350 wolves, some of which live across the borders with Italy and France.

With the growth came regulation. Since 1 February 2025, the cantons have been allowed to regulate entire packs preventively, even before any damage has occurred. Between February 2025 and January 2026, 89 wolves were shot in Switzerland, often young animals. This makes Swiss regulation particularly intensive by European comparison. How the political development unfolded from the first relaxation proposal to today's pack regulation is shown in the article «Federal Council wants to relax the protection of wolf and bear». What the return of the wolf means for the ecosystem is examined in «No wolf, no forest: what predators mean for Switzerland».

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.