Wolf Massacre Switzerland: 50 Wolves Killed in Two Months
Animal protection organisations demand an end to proactive wolf hunting. During the two-month hunting ordinance, at least two packs are said to have been wiped out.
Several animal protection organisations condemn the proactive, pre-emptive killing of wolves.
During the two-month hunting ordinance that ended on 31 January 2024, around 50 wolves are said to have been killed and at least two entire packs wiped out. The ordinance contradicts the hunting law, and the Department of the Environment should return to “proper working practices,” the organisations demand.
The “hunting ordinance imposed by stealth, with arbitrarily defined threshold values” and the resulting “widespread authorised elimination of entire packs” had been a “hasty decision with alarming consequences.”
Herd Protection Proving Effective
The legally protected species wolf had been degraded to the status of a pest, and even largely inconspicuous packs were to have been decimated or even eliminated. Yet the tally of livestock kills, updated through the end of 2023, shows that herd protection is working. In the canton of Graubünden, for example, livestock kills dropped by almost 50 percent, and in the canton of Glarus by around 80 percent.
It is undisputed that potential, greater damage caused by wolves can be proactively reduced through regulation, and this is provided for in the Hunting and Protection Act (JSG), the statement continued. However, the JSG requires proportionality just as much as respect for the wolf as part of the forest ecosystem, as well as the continued strengthening of herd protection.
Wolf Protectors See Incompatibility with the Bern Convention
At the end of November, the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) approved applications from five cantons to completely cull a total of twelve wolf packs. The basis was an amendment to the hunting ordinance. In Valais and Graubünden, however, animal protection organizations have obtained a suspension of the culls through appeals.
Wolf protection circles consider the culls incompatible with the Bern Convention, which Switzerland has signed. The Convention is an agreement on the conservation of European wild flora and fauna and their natural habitats.
Dossier: Wolf in Switzerland: Facts, Politics and the Limits of Hunting
Participate: Demand from your municipality, on the grounds of the catastrophic policy of Federal Councillor Albert Rösti (SVP), a tax remission request for federal and cantonal taxes in light of the recently approved culling of wolves in Switzerland. You can download the template letter here: https://wildbeimwild.com/ein-appell-fuer-eine-veraenderung-in-der-schweiz/
