Open letter to the Glarus Landammann on the rejection of the fox hunting petition

Following the rejection of the fox hunting petition by the Glarus Cantonal Government, the IG Wild beim Wild is addressing an open letter to Landammann Dr Markus Heer.

Seven questions, a deadline of two weeks, and the announcement that the answer, or the silence, will be made public. We document the letter verbatim.

On 9 June 2026, the Cantonal Government of the Canton of Glarus rejected the petition «Review of the scientific evidence on fox hunting» by the Lucerne lawyer Pascal Wolf. The justification ran to three paragraphs and named not a single study. We placed the matter in context in our article «Glarus rejects fox hunting petition without examining the evidence» . Because mere context does not do the matter justice, we followed up, directly with the signatory of the response.

The open letter follows the same approach as our letter to the Lucerne commission president Michael Kurmann in May 2026: factual, with concrete questions, and with the clear expectation of a reply. Here is the letter verbatim.

Open letter to Landammann Dr Markus Heer

Dear Landammann

It was with dismay that we took note of the Cantonal Government's response to the petition by Pascal Wolf of 4 March 2026 on fox hunting. The letter bears your signature. We therefore address ourselves directly to you.

The response comprises three substantive paragraphs and names not a single study, no survey and no report. In our view, it does not meet the minimum requirements for a serious engagement with a petition whose sole concern was the review of the scientific evidence. We ask you to comment on the following points.

1. «No evidence», but no source

The government council writes that there is “no indication that this hunting contradicts sustainability or endangers the fox population. Nor are any other problems known that might possibly be caused by fox hunting.” On what data, surveys or reports is this statement based? Has the canton of Glarus ever reviewed the scientific literature on fox hunting? If not: how can a petition that demands precisely this review be rejected on the grounds that no indications exist?

2. “May” is not “must”

Your answer refers to the hunting prerogative and the federal hunting act. Both regulate that foxes may be hunted. The petition did not ask whether fox hunting is permitted, but whether it is necessary and expedient. No federal law obliges the canton of Glarus to shoot foxes. Why does the government council answer a question that nobody asked, and leave the question that was actually asked unanswered?

3. The scientific evidence

For years, published research has documented compensatory effects in fox hunting: kills are offset by higher reproduction and immigration (among others Lieury et al. 2015, Baker and Harris 2006, Kämmerle et al. 2019, Rushton et al. 2006). The canton of Lucerne, the only canton that keeps a disease record of killed foxes, shows that over 98 per cent of the foxes killed were healthy. In Luxembourg, the infestation rate with the fox tapeworm has fallen since the fox hunting ban of 2015 from around 40 per cent (2014) to around 25 per cent (2017). Conversely, the French study by Comte et al. (2017) shows that intensive hunting can even increase the infestation rate, from 40 to 55 per cent. Was the government council aware of this body of evidence? If so, why is there no mention of it in the answer? If not, on what basis was the petition then examined?

4. Hunting-free zones as a practical test

Since 1974, the canton of Geneva has managed without hobby hunting of wild animals. The total cost of professional wildlife management there amounts to around one million francs per year, equivalent to roughly one cup of coffee per inhabitant. The prophesied problems have not materialised in fifty years.

This is shown even more clearly within our own country: the Swiss National Park in the Engadine has been entirely free of hunting since its founding on 1 August 1914, including the hunting of foxes. In over a hundred years, none of the scenarios used to justify fox hunting has come to pass. The populations regulate themselves through intraspecific competition, food availability and natural mortality. This experience does not come from Geneva or Luxembourg, but from the canton of Grisons, and it has been scientifically documented for a century. More on this in the dossier Self-regulation of wildlife populations. Did the cantonal government examine these findings before stating that there were «no known problems» that would justify a review?

5. Voices from within the hunting community itself

The Zurich hobby hunter Franz Balmer publicly admits: «In doing so, we harm the reputation of hunting more than we benefit it.» The wildlife biologist Sandra Gloor explains that killing a fox from a family group achieves «absolutely nothing». Robert Brunold, former president of the Grisons hunting community, states: «Low hunting is not necessary.» When even voices from within the hunting community dispute the usefulness of fox hunting, on what does the Glarus cantonal government base its contrary certainty?

6. Animal welfare act and tradition

Art. 4 para. 2 of the animal welfare act prohibits inflicting unjustified pain, suffering or harm on animals. The justification of fox hunting stands or falls with its demonstrable usefulness. How does the canton of Glarus justify the annual killing of foxes when it expressly refuses to examine this usefulness?

Should the canton invoke tradition in this regard, we note: cruelty to animals is not a tradition, and shooting an animal pointlessly even less so. Hunting, as indigenous peoples have always practised it, served survival and sustenance, borne of respect for the animal killed. Shooting healthy foxes that no one eats and whose death serves no demonstrable purpose has nothing in common with that. What is defended as custom is killing for the sake of killing.

7. Health risk to the population

The cantonal government implicitly claims that fox hunting serves to protect public health. Science shows the opposite: Hobby hunting of foxes promotes diseases, rather than curbing them. Foxes are natural disease-fighters: they regulate mouse and rodent populations, which are considered the main reservoirs for Lyme-disease-transmitting ticks. A study by Tim R. Hofmeester, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that in areas with higher predator activity there are 10 to 20 per cent fewer newly hatched ticks on rodents, and tick nymphs are 15 per cent more frequently infected when fox and stone marten are absent. The Federal Office of Public Health estimates that in Switzerland 6,000 to 12,000 people contract Lyme borreliosis each year and 100 to 250 contract TBE; the FOPH therefore classifies tick-borne diseases as an important health problem for Switzerland. In Germany, around 686 TBE cases were reported in 2024; in Switzerland, TBE figures reached their highest level since 2013 in early 2025. Anyone who shoots foxes weakens the most natural protective barrier we have against this development.

On top of this: hobby hunters actively spread diseases. This is precisely what is demonstrated by the France study already cited under point 3 (Comte et al. 2017): intensified fox hunting raised the infestation rate with the fox tapeworm (Echinococcus multilocularis) from 40 to 55 per cent, while it remained constant in the unhunted comparison area. The mechanism is well known: kills destabilise territories, increase the migratory movements of juvenile foxes and thereby spread the parasite across the landscape. A review study published in July 2025 in the Lancet Infectious Diseases documents case numbers across Europe: Switzerland has the highest number of cases per inhabitant after Lithuania. The only demonstrably effective countermeasure is deworming with praziquantel baits, which reduced the risk of infection by 97 to 99 per cent in the Starnberg district. Fox hunting, by contrast, increases the risk. We ask the cantonal government: is it aware of this body of evidence? And if so: how does it justify a practice that, according to current knowledge, does not protect the population's health but endangers it?

A historical example underscores this pattern with utter clarity: rabies was not defeated in Switzerland and throughout Central Europe by hobby hunting, but by large-scale vaccine-bait programmes. Since the 1970s, millions of vaccine baits have been dropped from aeroplanes and helicopters. The last case of rabies in foxes in Switzerland was reported in 1996; the WHO declared Western European fox rabies defeated shortly thereafter. Hobby hunters played no part in this. So anyone who claims that fox hunting serves to protect public health must explain why the very same hunting could not contain rabies, but the vaccine baits could.

We ask you for a statement within two weeks. This letter, along with your reply or your silence, will be published on wildbeimwild.com.

Yours faithfully
IG Wild beim Wild

What happens next

The letter is accompanied by a bibliography listing the key wildlife-biology studies on fox hunting, from the compensation studies in France, Wales and the Black Forest, through the hunting-free zones in the Swiss National Park and the canton of Geneva, to the documented experiences from Luxembourg. If the Cantonal Council replies within the deadline, we will publish the statement and comment on it. If no reply is forthcoming, we will record that too. The question that Pascal Wolf has put to over twelve cantons remains the same: if no federal law obliges the cantons to hunt foxes, then on what scientific basis does Switzerland kill around 20’000 foxes each year?

Background on the rejection of the petition can be found in our article «Glarus rejects fox-hunting petition without examining the evidence», on the scientific assessment of fox hunting in the dossier Hunting Myths as well as in the article «Anyone who still hunts foxes today is not hunting in a sporting manner».