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

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

Seven questions, a two-week deadline, and the announcement that the response — or the silence — will be made public. We are publishing the letter in full.

On 9 June 2026, the cantonal government of Glarus rejected the petition «Review of the scientific evidence on fox hunting» submitted by Lucerne-based lawyer Pascal Wolf. The justification comprised three paragraphs and did not cite a single study. We examined the matter in our article «Glarus rejects petition on fox hunting without reviewing the evidence». Because a mere review of the matter does not do it justice, we followed up directly with the signatory of the response.

The open letter follows the same approach as our letter to Lucerne committee chairman Michael Kurmann in May 2026: factual, with concrete questions, and with the clear expectation of a response. Here is the letter in full.

Open letter to Landammann Dr. Markus Heer

Dear Mr Landammann

We have noted with dismay the cantonal government's response to Pascal Wolf's petition of 4 March 2026. The letter bears your signature. We are therefore addressing you directly.

The response comprises three substantive paragraphs and does not cite a single study, survey, or report. In our view, it fails to meet the minimum standards 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 indications», but no source

The Governing Council writes that there is «no indication that this hunting contradicts sustainability or endangers the fox population. Nor are other problems potentially caused by fox hunting known.» 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 explicitly requests precisely this review be rejected on the grounds that no indications exist?

2. «May» is not «must»

Your response refers to the cantonal hunting prerogative and the federal hunting act. Both merely regulate that foxes may be hunted. The petition did not ask whether fox hunting is permitted, but whether it is necessary and appropriate. No federal law obliges the Canton of Glarus to shoot foxes. Why does the Governing Council answer a question that nobody asked, while leaving the question that was actually asked unanswered?

3. The scientific evidence

Published research has for years documented compensation 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 disease statistics on killed foxes, reports that over 98 per cent of the foxes killed were healthy. In Luxembourg, the infestation rate with fox tapeworm has fallen from around 40 per cent (2014) to around 25 per cent (2017) since the 2015 ban on fox hunting. 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 Governing Council aware of this body of evidence? If so, why is it not mentioned in the response? If not, on what basis was the petition then assessed?

4. Hunting-free areas as a practical test

The Canton of Geneva has managed without recreational hunting of wild animals since 1974. 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 predicted problems have not materialised in fifty years.

This becomes even clearer within our own country: the Swiss National Park in the Engadin has been entirely free of hunting since its founding on 1 August 1914, including for foxes. In over a hundred years, none of the scenarios used to justify fox hunting has materialised. 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 this evidence before stating that "no problems are known" that would justify a review?

5. Voices from within the hunting community itself

The Zurich recreational hunter Franz Balmer openly admits: «We do more harm to the reputation of hunting this way than good.» Wildlife biologist Sandra Gloor explains that killing a fox from a family group achieves «absolutely nothing». Robert Brunold, former president of the Grisons hunting association, states: «The low hunt is not necessary.» If even voices from within hunting circles dispute the benefit of fox hunting, on what basis does the Glarus cantonal government maintain its contrary certainty?

6. Animal welfare law and tradition

Article 4 paragraph 2 of the Animal Welfare Act prohibits causing animals unjustified pain, suffering or harm. The justification for fox hunting stands or falls with its demonstrable benefit. How does the canton of Glarus justify the annual killing of foxes when it explicitly refuses to examine this benefit?

Should the canton invoke tradition in this regard, we would like to state clearly: animal cruelty is not a tradition, and shooting an animal pointlessly even less so. The hunting practised by indigenous peoples since time immemorial served survival and food, carried by respect for the killed animal. This has nothing in common with the shooting of healthy foxes that no one eats and whose death serves no demonstrable purpose. What is defended as custom is killing for killing's sake.

7. Health risk to the population

The cantonal government implicitly claims that fox hunting serves to protect public health. Science shows the opposite: Recreational hunting of foxes promotes disease, instead of containing it. Foxes are natural disease fighters: they regulate mouse and rodent populations, which are considered the main reservoirs for ticks that transmit Lyme disease. A study by Tim R. Hofmeester published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows that in areas with higher predator activity, 10 to 20 percent fewer newly hatched ticks are found on rodents, and tick nymphs are 15 percent more frequently infected when foxes and stone martens are absent. The Federal Office of Public Health estimates that 6,000 to 12,000 people in Switzerland contract Lyme disease annually, and 100 to 250 contract tick-borne encephalitis (TBE); the FOPH therefore classifies tick-borne diseases as a significant health problem for Switzerland. In Germany, around 686 TBE cases were reported in 2024; in Switzerland, TBE figures reached their highest level since 2013 at the start of 2025. Anyone who shoots foxes weakens the most natural protective barrier we have against this development.

What's more: recreational hunters actively spread disease. This is precisely what the French study already cited under point 3 (Comte et al. 2017) demonstrates: intensified fox hunting increased the infection rate with the fox tapeworm (Echinococcus multilocularis) from 40 to 55 percent, while it remained constant in the unhunted comparison area. The mechanism is well known: culls destabilise territories, increase the wandering movements of juvenile foxes, and thereby spread the parasite across wider areas. A review study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases in July 2025 documents case numbers across Europe: Switzerland has the second-highest case rate per inhabitant after Lithuania. The only demonstrably effective countermeasure is deworming with praziquantel baits, which reduced the infection risk by 97 to 99 percent in the Starnberg district. Fox hunting, by contrast, increases the risk. We ask the Cantonal Council: Is it aware of these findings? And if so: how does it justify a practice that, according to current knowledge, does not protect public health but endangers it?

A historical example underscores this pattern with full clarity: rabies was not defeated in Switzerland and across Central Europe by recreational 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 eradicated shortly thereafter. Recreational hunters played no part in this. So whoever claims that fox hunting serves public health protection must explain why that same hunting failed to contain rabies, while the vaccine baits succeeded.

We request a statement from you within two weeks. This letter, along with your response or your silence, will be published on wildbeimwild.com.

Yours sincerely
IG Wild beim Wild

What happens next

Enclosed with the letter is a list of literature containing the central wildlife-biological studies on fox hunting, ranging from the compensation studies from France, Wales and the Black Forest, to the hunting-free areas in the Swiss National Park and in the canton of Geneva, to the documented experiences from Luxembourg. If the Cantonal Council responds within the deadline, we will publish and comment on its statement. If no response is forthcoming, we will note that too. The question that Pascal Wolf has posed in over twelve cantons remains the same: if no federal law compels the cantons to hunt foxes, on what scientific basis does Switzerland kill around 20,000 foxes every year?

Background on the rejection of the petition can be found in our article «Glarus rejects petition on fox hunting without reviewing the evidence», on the scientific classification of fox hunting in the dossier Hunting myths as well as in the article «Whoever still hunts foxes today is not hunting in a sportsmanlike manner».