Psychology of recreational hunting in the canton of Uri

Uri is a canton where recreational hunting is not merely practiced, but defended as alpine heritage. The mountains, tradition, community: Everything merges into an identity system where criticism is not heard as suggestion, but experienced as an attack on one's way of life. Psychologically, this creates a defense mechanism that stabilizes itself through popular votes, political escalation and ritual self-affirmation.

Wild beim Wild Editorial Team — March 18, 2026

The canton of Uri operates under a patent hunting system.

Big game hunting begins each year in early September, small game hunting in mid-October. A certain number of animals may be killed per patent. The hunting season is limited to a few weeks, but the psychological impact extends far beyond. Those who hunt in Uri understand themselves as part of an order that has regulated the relationship between humans and mountains for generations. It is precisely this self-perception that makes the system so resistant to change.

Special hunts and post-hunts: Escalation as permanent condition

Every year, the same pattern emerges in the canton of Uri: the regular big game hunting season is insufficient to meet the officially set culling quotas for red deer. In 2024, 264 deer were killed during the big game hunting season, but the number of female deer killed fell short of the target by 145 animals canton-wide. Additional hunting was therefore ordered once again in all four hunting regions of the canton. In 2025, the scenario repeated itself: only 218 deer were killed, even fewer than the previous year.

This structure is psychologically revealing. The additional hunting is not read as a failure of the system, but as proof of its necessity. The less the regular hunting achieves, the more its intensification is demanded. A classic control reflex takes hold: when the measure doesn't work, the measure itself is not questioned, but the intensity is increased. This protects the self-image of the hobby hunters as an effective regulatory force.

Particularly problematic is the timing of the additional hunting. It begins in November and can extend into December. In a letter to the editor, Karl Mattli pointed out that female deer are already in their third month of pregnancy at this time and are still accompanied by their spring calf. The special hunt therefore intervenes in a biologically highly sensitive phase. The animals are also already in their winter quarters and have reduced their metabolism. When driven to flight by gunshots, they must bring their metabolism up to full speed in the shortest time, leading to increased energy consumption and consequently more browsing damage.

Here a paradox emerges that is psychologically central: hobby hunting creates precisely the damage it claims to combat. Heavy hunting pressure drives wild animals into the forest, where they nibble on tree buds due to lack of grasses and herbs. Browsing damage increases, which in turn serves as justification for even more hunting. This self-reinforcing cycle is not addressed by hunting administration, but rather made invisible. Psychologically, this constitutes a closed legitimation system that reinterprets its own failures as confirmation of its necessity.

Massacre during the special hunt in canton Uri

Predator Initiative: When fear becomes constitution

A key event for understanding hunting psychology in Uri is the popular initiative 'On the regulation of large predators', which was adopted on February 10, 2019 with 70.2 percent approval. The proposal launched by the Farmers' Association demanded that the canton issue regulations for protection against predators and population regulation. The 'promotion of large predator populations' was to be prohibited.

Psychologically, this vote is to be read less as a political measure than as a collective expression of discontent. For in practice, nothing changed through the adoption: the demands were already largely fulfilled in existing legislation, and the cantons have no leeway for their own predator policy. WWF Uri spoke of the 'senselessness of the initiative' and pointed out that canton Uri was already maximally exploiting its scope of action. Even the responsible government councilor Dimitri Moretti admitted that one would have to 'wait' until federal legislation was revised.

What the initiative psychologically reveals is a deep sense of threat that cannot be resolved by factual arguments. Wolf, bear and lynx are not perceived as returnees to an ecosystem, but as intruders into an ordered world. The formulation 'promotion of large predator populations is prohibited' shows a perpetrator-victim reversal: it is not the wild animal that is being protected, but the human order from the wild animal. In Unterschächen, 96.1 percent voted for the initiative, in Isenthal 93.2 percent, in Spiringen 88.8 percent. The more rural, the more alpine, the stronger the approval.

Psychologically, a mechanism is at work here that social psychology describes as threat reactance: the more strongly one's own territory and autonomy are experienced as threatened, the harder the counter-reaction. The initiative was not an instrument of problem-solving, but a valve for a diffuse feeling of loss of control. The farmers' association president Wendelin Loretz tellingly spoke of a 'warning call or even a cry for help to the federal government'. This is the language of threat, not of substantive policy.

Ptarmigan and mountain hares: When species protection loses

Another psychologically revealing event is the popular initiative 'Let ptarmigan and mountain hares live', on which the Uri electorate voted on 18 May 2025. The initiative demanded a hunting ban for mountain hares and ptarmigan, whose populations are demonstrably declining and which are on the Red List of threatened species. Nationwide in 2023, 244 ptarmigan and 837 mountain hares were still killed by recreational hunting.

The initiative was rejected. Psychologically, the result is at least as relevant as that of the predator vote. Because this was not about an abstract threat from predators, but about a concrete question: Should threatened species continue to be hunted for pleasure? The answer was yes, and this in a context where even the canton of Ticino had already stopped ptarmigan hunting in 2021.

The argumentation of the hunting lobby is psychologically revealing. The former president of the Uri Hunters' Association argued essentially that recreational hunters are not a threat, but protectors of nature. A blanket ban would weaken an 'essential practice of nature conservation'. Here the central interpretive pattern becomes apparent: killing is framed as protecting, and whoever questions the killing allegedly endangers protection. This semantic inversion is a classic example of cognitive dissonance reduction.

Wolf culling 2022: Control above all

In May and June 2022, the Uri Security Directorate ordered the culling of a wolf after at least 5 goats and 13 sheep had been killed in the municipality of Wassen. The CHWolf association sharply condemned the culling permit and argued that it did not comply with the applicable federal hunting ordinance. In particular, 7 of the killed sheep had been kept on unprotected areas and therefore should not be allocated to the 'culling quota'.

Psychologically, the episode is relevant on several levels. First, it shows how quickly the reflex to kill takes effect as soon as a predator becomes visible. Second, the reaction reveals a livestock protection deficit: after five years of concept work in the 'Alpine Concept Upper Reuss Valley', apparently no effective livestock protection was established. Instead of problematizing this gap, responsibility was transferred to the wolf. Third, the political framing shows how the wolf serves as a projection surface for loss of control.

Uri issues culling permit for wolf

Loosening instead of control: hunting regulations 2024

Instead of tightening hunting practices, Canton Uri relaxed regulations for recreational hunters in 2024. Foreign nationals no longer need to reside in the canton for ten years before being allowed to hunt. And proof of marksmanship no longer needs to be demonstrated with the actual weapon used in recreational hunting, but merely with a 'hunting-suitable' weapon.

Psychologically, this is a revealing signal. It shows where regulatory energy flows: not into protecting wildlife, but into facilitating access to recreational hunting. While threatened species continue to be hunted and post-season hunting of pregnant red deer hinds is ordered annually, barriers to weapon access are lowered.

The relaxation of marksmanship requirements is particularly explosive. Anyone using a different weapon in recreational hunting than the one with which shooting proficiency was demonstrated increases the risk of missed shots and animal suffering. That this relaxation is framed by the hunting administration as an 'adaptation to changed framework conditions' shows how strongly administrative language functions as a psychological smoothing instrument.

Canton Uri relaxes regulations for recreational hunters

Ibex reduction culls: Trophy hunting with administrative stamp

Annually, the Uri Security Directorate orders so-called reduction culls of ibex. In the Brisen, Oberalp/Tödi, Susten/Meiental and Unteralp-Guspis colonies, male and female ibex are released for culling. Allocation follows the age of hunting license holders: whoever is oldest receives a culling permit first. The venison and trophies go to the shooters.

This practice shows how thin the line between 'regulation' and trophy hunting actually is. The official order gives the cull bureaucratic legitimation, but the structure resembles a lottery system for a coveted hunting experience. Psychologically, this is central: the administrative framing relieves participants of moral responsibility. One acts not from personal motivation, but 'on behalf of the canton'. This delegation of responsibility is a known mechanism of moral self-exoneration.

Hunting accidents and hunting criminality: Repressed realities

On September 7, 2023, a 38-year-old recreational hunter in the Steinboden area in the municipality of Spiringen was struck by a ricochet and had to be flown to hospital by Rega. In Canton Uri, there are also indications of suspected poaching and animal welfare violations documented on the black list of JagdSchweiz.

Psychologically, the handling of hunting accidents is revealing. They are framed as individual mishaps, not as systemic risks of an armed recreational activity. Police investigate the 'exact sequence of events', but a fundamental debate about safety risks of recreational hunting does not take place.

Alpine identity as protective shield

All these examples combine into a consistent psychological pattern. Recreational hunting in Uri is not an isolated practice, but an identity system. It is interwoven with alpine self-perception, with the image of the 'mountain dweller' who orders his environment, and with a deeply rooted conviction that this order is threatened from outside.

Criticism is therefore not processed as factual objection, but as an attack on the alpine way of life. The mechanism is always the same: whoever questions recreational hunting questions Uri. This equation of practice and identity makes the system extraordinarily resistant to change.

The Canton of Geneva has shown since 1974 that professional wildlife management works without recreational hunting. This model is not discussed in Uri, but ignored. Psychologically, this is consistent: the mere existence of a functioning alternative threatens the narrative of indispensability.

Geneva Model: Hunting ban since 1974

Uri is not a special case, but a magnifying glass. In no other canton is it so clearly visible how alpine identity, political symbolism and hunting practice interlock to create a system that does not integrate criticism, but repels it. Anyone who wants to understand the psychology of recreational hunting in Switzerland must understand how Uri ticks.

More on this in the dossier: Psychology of Hunting

Cantonal Psychology Analyses: