Night vision banned, exemption granted: the self-contradiction of hunting rules in Grisons

Anyone reading the hunting regulations in Grisons will find a long catalogue of technical limits.

Night vision and thermal imaging devices are in principle banned in recreational hunting, as are drones, and silencers require an exemption permit. The intention behind this is clear: recreational hunting should not become a pursuit that can be upgraded at will, but should require a certain level of skill. Yet the same canton makes exceptions as soon as wild boars, foxes and agricultural damage are involved. For night hunting of wild boars in the Mesolcina it relaxes the ban on thermal imaging technology. For the fox, the baiting ban that expressly applies to red deer is missing. And for the mobile phone, which the official catalogue of examination questions once expressly prohibited for hunting purposes, today's regulations contain no corresponding wording. What presents itself as a principle applies only with reservations.

A set of rules that feigns thoroughness

The body of rules made up of the ordinance, annexes and appendices governs which animal species may be killed on which hunt and at which time. It prescribes high-visibility vests on the driven hunt, bans lead-containing ammunition on the high hunt and prohibits the baiting of cloven-hoofed game with apples, pomace or bread. The section on technical aids reads as particularly strict. The Ordinance on Hunting Operations prohibits, in Article 6, the carrying and use of night vision and thermal imaging devices as front attachments, rear attachments or telescopic sights, as well as drones while hunting; added to this are bans on camera traps, motion detectors and surveillance cameras for hunting purposes. Silencers are permitted only subject to an exceptional permit under federal weapons law, which must be carried during recreational hunting. And since 2026, a vehicle may not stop to observe game during the high hunt and low hunt if a weapon is in the car.

Anyone reading this list might think that wild animals are being protected here with the utmost care from every unfair pursuit. The canton justifies this by arguing that hunting requires a certain skill that must not be diluted by modern technology. Yet this principle only applies as long as it suits the authorities.

From ban to loophole: the about-turn on mobile phones

Just how changeable the rules are is shown by the handling of the mobile phone. The official catalogue of questions issued by the Office for Hunting and Fisheries answered the question of whether the use of mobile phones for hunting purposes was permitted in unambiguous terms: No, mobile phones fell under the term radio devices, whose use for hunting purposes was prohibited. Non-hunting use, such as emergency calls, remained permitted. In the public debate at the time, the ban was justified by the concern that mobile phones could facilitate coordination, up to and including large-scale driven hunts.

The then hunting inspector Georg Brosi was still defending this ban in 2018. Supporters warned that lifting it would enable coordination: an observer could guide his fellow hunter on the opposite slope towards the game, as was reported at the time. Hunting, according to Brosi, requires a certain skill that should not be diluted by modern technology. It was precisely this coordination using cars and mobile phones that the association Wildtierschutz Schweiz had already documented back in 2010 at the Grisons special hunt.

Then the resistance collapsed. A three-quarters majority of the delegates of the Grisons cantonal licence hunters' association voted in 2018 in favour of authorisation. In the version of the ordinance accessible today, there is no longer an equally explicit ban on the use of mobile phones while hunting. This does not automatically mean that every form of real-time coordination would be permissible; other enactments, directives and enforcement practice would be decisive. Yet the danger that the office had cited as justification did not disappear. What disappeared was the clear wording. This raises an open question: may a person observe game, pass on the location, direction of movement and number of animals in real time, and have other hunters adjust their positions accordingly? What was once explicitly banned as an arrangement typical of driven hunts is today no longer clearly regulated.

The same office, the exception

The tension becomes even clearer in the case of night vision technology. The ordinance bans thermal imaging devices during the low hunt, but expressly exempts night hunting from this. Since 2025, the canton has allowed specially authorised hobby licence hunters to hunt wild boars at night in the Mesolcina; there, exceptions to the ban on thermal imaging technology apply. Which clip-on, rear-mounted or riflescope devices are approved in individual cases is not disclosed publicly by the canton, and precisely this lack of transparency is part of the problem. Silencers are not subject to a special Mesolcina rule but to the general exemption permit under weapons law. The hunt is restricted to clearly designated meadows and to the hours between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.; in the surrounding forest it remains prohibited. We examined how this pilot project works in the article Grisons sends recreational hunters out on nocturnal wild boar stalks.

The restriction changes nothing about the core political question. Technology that is normally restricted because of its escalating effects may be used as soon as the canton expects a particularly efficient kill to curb agricultural damage. The difference is not the technology but the objective. Fairness towards game is therefore not a consistently upheld principle but a requirement that gives way as soon as more efficient kills are desired.

Baiting banned, no ban for the fox

The pattern is clearest in the case of luring. Article 53 of the ordinance expressly prohibits the setting up of baiting sites for hoofed game; red deer, roe deer or chamois may not be tied to a particular spot with apples, pomace or bread. For wait hunting of fox, badger and marten, the ordinance contains no equivalent prohibition. At so-called carrion sites, animal bait such as meat waste and offal is put out to lure predators to a predictable place and to make the shot from a high seat easier. What counts as prohibited baiting in the case of red deer remains a customary method of wait hunting in the case of the fox.

The night-time rules also differ for the fox. In Grisons, wait hunting may be practised from 5.30 p.m. to 6.30 a.m. and runs from 1 November to the end of February. Since 1 February 2025, federal law has prohibited hunting in the forest at night. Wait hunting, however, remains expressly exempt, and the cantons may provide for further exceptions in order to prevent damage caused by wildlife. Night is defined as the period from one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise. In its regulations, Grisons expressly counts fox, badger and marten among the species that may be hunted by wait hunting. A prohibition is formulated and, in the same breath, given the exception that hollows it out precisely where most hunting takes place. The system is documented in the article What is wait hunting? and in the Wait Hunting Dossier.

This affects an animal species whose hunting can hardly be justified ecologically. Several studies on compensatory mechanisms show that intensive fox hunting does not lastingly reduce populations or diseases in the intended way, because increased mortality is offset by higher reproduction. There is also the question of timing: wait hunting overlaps with the mating season and early pregnancy from December to February; it can therefore affect paired or pregnant vixens, at a site where they have previously been baited. This is hard to reconcile with the sporting ethics that recreational hunting itself invokes. Around 20’000 foxes are still killed in Switzerland every year.

The heaviest weight, however, falls on an admission from within their own ranks. The low hunt on fox, badger and hare, of which wait hunting forms part, was described by the former Grisons association president Robert Brunold himself as «not necessary, but justified». That says out loud what the rulebook obscures: this recreational hunting is not about ecological necessity, but about leisure interest. A set of rules that organises, down to the last detail, a form of recreational hunting acknowledged by its own practitioners as unnecessary protects no wild animals. It administers a hobby. More on this in the detailed fact check.

Technology versus instinct

The individual devices dovetail with one another. As we set out in the article The recreational hunter in the 21st century, modern equipment compensates for a whole series of missing skills: computer-controlled riflescopes, long-range binoculars, GPS devices for orientation in the terrain. If real-time coordination by telephone were added, it could concentrate hunting pressure spatially and make the escape routes of game less predictable. Individual observations thus become a coordinated group operation.

A rulebook with many violations

An extensive rulebook only protects wild animals if compliance with it can be monitored. The figures from the cantonal office show how many proceedings and fines arise in hunting operations: in 2020, 1’173 fixed penalty fines were issued and 68 reports filed, a total of 1’241 cases. In 2019 there were 998 fixed penalty fines and 106 reports, amounting to 1’104 cases in total. These figures must not be equated with the same number of offending individuals, and a considerable share concerns self-reported wrongful kills: in 2020, 980 cases involved wrongful kills, according to the office 96 per cent of them self-reported.

Nevertheless, the record reveals a fundamental problem: a hunting system with thousands of people hunting freely, complicated requirements and limited monitoring continuously produces violations, misconduct and conflicts.

The special hunt as the moment of truth

In the special hunt this open question is particularly significant. At this time of year, red deer, roe deer and chamois are in an energetically demanding phase; they should be conserving fat reserves and finding rest in order to survive the winter. Instead, the recreational hunters head out once again to fulfil the kill quotas. The special hunt also covers female animals. Precisely in the case of animals with young, the animal welfare question arises as to how reliably dependent juveniles are recognised, spared or cared for after a kill.

Flight and repeated disturbance increase energy expenditure; how serious the consequences are depends on the species, snow conditions, food availability, duration of disturbance and opportunities to evade. If wildlife locations and escape directions could be exchanged in real time between those hunting, this would further increase the pressure on the animals. That is why digital group coordination requires clear, verifiable limits. What the office calls «population management» must not turn into a practice in which technical communication systematically undermines the animals' last remaining opportunity for unpredictable flight.

What follows from this

Grisons does not treat technical hunting aids and hunting methods according to a uniform standard, but according to the desired outcome. As a rule, night vision and thermal imaging technology are prohibited, silencers are made subject to authorisation, and the luring of hoofed game is forbidden. For night hunting of wild boars, the rules on thermal imaging technology are exceptionally relaxed, and for wait hunting of foxes the ban on luring is absent altogether. A canton may well be entitled to make such a trade-off. But then it should state it openly, instead of presenting technical limits and luring bans as a general requirement of fairness towards wild animals — one that gives way as soon as more kills are desired for the hobby.

With regard to mobile phones, a regulatory gap also remains. According to the official catalogue of questions, their use for hunting purposes was expressly prohibited. In the text of the ordinance published today, unlike for drones, night vision technology, camera traps and observation from vehicles, an equally clear wording is missing. The canton should state bindingly whether and to what extent the passing on of wildlife locations, directions of movement, images or live positions during recreational hunting is permissible, and how this is monitored.

The canton of Geneva has operated without general recreational hunting since 1974 and relies on professional wildlife wardens for population management; last season not a single fox was shot there for leisure pleasure. For wild animals the point is this: they do not need rules that only adapt once their death becomes administratively useful. They need peace, refuges and a hunting regime whose limits are not shifted every time a new expedient arises for a hobby.