Podcast episode: Hunting, wolf and politics

This episode of «Wild beim Wild» examines the gap between what authorities and associations promise and what is actually happening in the cantons. The episode covers wolf policy, cantonal hunting statistics, the hunting lobby's media work, and four decisions on animal welfare.

Wolf policy: bounties, packs and open protection limits

In Ticino, a young wolf from the Camoghè pack was killed. This reveals how the new cantonal model works: trained recreational hunters receive a starting fee of 300 francs, 30 francs per hour up to a maximum of 80 hours, and 500 francs for every wolf killed. Unlike with professional wildlife wardens, part of the compensation is thus directly tied to the lethal outcome.

At the same time, the consultation on the revision of the hunting act runs until 16 October. It aims to newly allow wolf kills between February and May as well as within federal hunting ban zones. The explanatory report itself concedes that orphaned young animals may be left behind. The article on the hunting ban zones raises the fundamental question: a protected area that only protects as long as no one is disturbed is a façade.

In Valais, the Nanz pack cleared for total kill, the second pack within a week after the Augstbord pack. How many wolves are affected, which kills are attributed to them, and how the herds were protected, the canton does not disclose.

Hunting statistics from the cantons

Grisons starts with 4,616 planned red deer kills and the third proactive wolf regulation in a row. Documented are a wounded roe deer buck whose follow-up search was abandoned after ten hours without success, and misfired shots that, according to official data, have numbered in the thousands for years.

In the Ticino is the official verdict on the high hunt: fewer animals were killed, but “better”. What is meant is the sex ratio of the red deer killed, not the welfare of the non-human animals: 1,882 red deer, 501 chamois, 399 wild boars and 167 roe deer. The two recreational hunters who died in accidents are not mentioned in the tally.

Valais has released three Red List species for hunting — Eurasian woodcock, black grouse and rock ptarmigan — and is sticking with bounty payments for foxes. St. Gallen wants to dissolve its red deer management associations, because kill targets have been missed for years and, according to the cantonal report, recreational hunters prefer to fight over trophy stags rather than cull hinds.

How media portraits frame this practice as a connection to nature is shown in the articles on roe deer hunting in the canton of Bern and on the Eschenberg forest. In Aargau, a leaflet from the recreational hunters explains to the public how it is to adapt, with fines of up to 20,000 francs. At the same time, enclosed hunting blinds there were classified as exempt from permits, even though the 2015 circular subjects them to building permit requirements.

Hunting culture, media and lobby

RTR is raffling off a hunting licence and letting the public vote on the “most beautiful” trophy photo. A media ethics assessment considers this unproblematic, even though the Swiss Game Wardens' Association describes such images as pointless and harmful.

The article on JagdSchweiz and FACE shows how this framework operates across Europe: a personal union of association and politics, public money with little oversight, and the wolf as a shared enemy. The hunting barometer was commissioned by the association itself. The result of WaMos 2, according to which 79 per cent of the population have reservations about or reject recreational hunting, is absent from the association's communications.

Animal welfare and wildlife policy

Parliament has enshrined the ban on fur produced through animal cruelty in law, with a transitional period until 2030. 30 young Bearded vulture have fledged this year, a record, yet lead from hunting ammunition remains largely permitted until 2030. Thurgau has unanimously referred a ban on barbed-wire fences. And Switzerland, at the International Whaling Commission, has Dolphin resolution withdrawn, before it was negotiated.