IUCN wolf experts sharply criticize the Federal Council
The World Conservation Union criticizes the Federal Council for its preventive wolf regulation. It is unscientific and leads to more conflicts among wolves.
Science-based regulation demanded
The wolf experts of the IUCN group are calling for a science-based regulation of the wolf population, based on healthy animals in stable packs with established territories.
They argue that recreational hunting of wolves leads to the break-up of packs and to more conflicts.
It was also emphasized that it is unproven and misleading that wolves develop greater wariness through culling. The expert group also criticizes the reduction of wolf packs to just 12, which falls far below the minimum for a healthy population of around 20 packs. Instead, Switzerland should allow itself more time to relearn how to coexist with wolves.
Predators at the top of the food chain
The group also emphasizes Switzerland’s responsibility as part of the territory of the Alpine wolf population and calls for cross-border regulation in consultation with neighboring countries. It highlights the important role of wolves as the largest predators at the top of the food chain in the ecosystem and their role in regulating wildlife populations.
Warning against loosening wolf protection
The expert group warns of the consequences of loosening wolf protection in Switzerland, which now permits the preventive shooting of wolves, including entire packs.
The Federal Council approved the amendment to the hunting ordinance at the beginning of November, and the revised federal law enters into force on 1 December. Wolf culls will be permitted until 31 January.
Dossier: Wolf in Switzerland: Facts, Politics and the Limits of Hunting
Further articles
- Swiss meadows losing biodiversity at an alarming rate
- When sheep, cattle and others encroach on wildlife habitat
- Swiss Animal Protection criticizes planned wolf culls as a threat to pack structures and livestock protection
- Incompetence in wolf management rages in Graubünden
- Val Fex: When the livestock protection concept has more holes than the fence
- Shooting instead of protection – Switzerland on the path to silent wolf extermination
- Communication failure at the Office for Hunting and Fishing Graubünden
- Illegal wolf hunting in Switzerland
- Wolf cubs in Switzerland under crossfire
- Switzerland sells wolf massacre as success
- Sloppiness in the office of Katrin Schneeberger
- Livestock grazing alters soil, plant and insect populations
- The insane hunt for wolves in Switzerland
- The truth about sheep mortality in Switzerland: causes and statistics
- Wolf culls in Switzerland: concern over party politician Albert Rösti
- Let us stop the SVP's destructive rage
- Participatory campaign: An appeal for change in Switzerland
- 200 environmental organizations from 6 continents call on the Swiss government: Stop the wolf cull
- Federal Council strongly criticized by wolf experts
- The consequences of controversial wolf management in Switzerland
- Wolf: Federal Councillor Rösti (SVP) circumvents law and order
- Es Burebüebli mahn i nit
- Are BAFU and the hunting authorities still working responsibly?
- Federal Councillor Albert Rösti tramples the will of the people underfoot
- The consequences of controversial wolf management in Switzerland
- Too many sheep harm biodiversity
- Agricultural use destroys alpine meadows
- Livestock kills despite herd protection – how is that possible?
- The rotten apple in the St. Gallen hunting administration
- Pro Natura demands comprehensive strategy for summer sheep grazing
- According to Agridea study, livestock protection with dogs works well
- Thanks to herd protection, wolves in Switzerland kill fewer livestock
- Farmers treat fields as disposal sites
- Biomass of wild animals
- On sheep farmers and vague authorities
- The double standards of wolf opponents
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In our dossiers on the criticism of recreational hunting gather fact-checks, analyses and background reports. The scientific evidence is presented in the overview Studies on the Effects of Recreational Hunting.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
