Ticino Veterinary Office looks away, animals die

The Ticino Veterinary Office has tolerated unprotected livestock in wolf territories for years. Ten attacks, 50 dead animals, zero consequences. A systematic failure.

It is a pattern that can no longer be explained as coincidence.

On October 16/17, 2025, eleven fallow deer were killed in a single night in Bironico. The cantonal Office for Recreational Hunting and Fisheries confirmed: The enclosure fence was not sufficiently wolf-proof. And yet the cantonal Veterinary Office had issued a keeping permit.

On December 10, 2025, two sheep were found dead in Origlio. Official finding: Animals not adequately protected. DNA analysis confirmed the involvement of a predator.

On January 13, 2026, a sheep is found dead in Intragna. Official finding: animals not adequately protected. Here too, genetic analysis confirms the involvement of a predator.

On January 20, 2026, a sheep is found dead in Lema. Official finding: animals not adequately protected. Once again, DNA analysis confirms the involvement of a predator.

On February 1, 2026, four sheep die in Sonvico. Official finding: animals not adequately protected.

On the night of February 5-6, 2026, a wolf kills ten sheep in Paudo. Animal keeper Piero Maretti admits that the fence 'repeatedly had holes' and the barn was too small for all animals, which is why the sheep spent the night outdoors. Official finding: animals not adequately protected.

On February 6, 2026, ten more sheep are found dead in Bellinzona, two animals have since disappeared. On February 19, 2026, three lambs die in Gambarogno.In both cases the same official response: animals not adequately protected.

On March 9, 2026, another animal is found dead in Sonvico, this time a goat. Official finding: animals not adequately protected. This makes Sonvico affected for the second time within just five weeks. Obviously, neither the animal keeper nor the veterinary office took any measures after the first incident.

On March 13, 2026, six sheep and one goat are found dead in Villa Luganese. Official finding: animals not adequately protected.

Ten incidents in five months. At least 50 killed animals. Always the same diagnosis. Never a consequence.

An authority that knows its duties but fails to fulfill them

The cantonal veterinary office bears not only an advisory but a genuine supervisory and control obligation in the area of livestock husbandry. This is not an abstract demand, but applicable law.

The Animal Protection Act (TSchG) and the Animal Protection Ordinance (TSchV) oblige cantons to actively control compliance with animal protection regulations and to intervene in case of violations. This supervisory duty is not an option that one can exercise when one has time, it is binding.

In the Bironico case, it goes even further: There, the cantonal veterinary office issued a keeping permit for fallow deer, although the enclosure did not comply with legally prescribed requirements. There is no other way to explain the penetration of wolves. The Office for Hunting and Fisheries has confirmed the inadequate fencing. The permit must therefore have been granted anyway, otherwise the keeping would not have been legal at all. This is not just a missed control. This is an unlawful permit issuance. The IG Wild beim Wild has therefore also filed acriminal complaint against the veterinary office itself for abuse of office.

'Not adequately protected' – and then?

What happens after this official finding? Apparently: nothing.

There are no publicly documented cases of which the IG Wild beim Wild is aware in which the Ticino veterinary office conducted a follow-up inspection, set a deadline, issued a requirement, or initiated proceedings after a wolf attack with this finding. Instead, the next attack is awaited and it is again recorded that the animals were 'not adequately protected'.

This cycle has a name: official tolerance. And it has a direct consequence: animal keepers who do not take their protection duties seriously need not fear sanctions. The signal sent by the veterinary office implicitly reads: nothing will happen to you.

Not in the Alps, but right on the doorstep

A detail that consistently gets lost in public debate: These animals were not located on a remote alpine pasture, far from any human eye. Bironico lies in the valley at 468 m above sea level, just a few kilometers from Lugano. Origlio practically borders Bironico and is situated at 430 m above sea level in the middle of the Vedeggio valley. Villa Luganese is located at around 530 m above sea level in the immediate vicinity, also in the Luganese. Intragna is situated at 339 m above sea level in the Centovalli. Paudo, Sonvico, Bellinzona, Gambarogno: all valley locations or areas close to settlements, all places where livestock owners live or reside in the immediate vicinity of their animals.

A particularly shocking case is Lema at around 995 m above sea level above the Malcantone. There, on January 20, 2026, right in the middle of winter, a dead sheep was found. Lema is a typical summer pasture area where sheep are normally not kept during winter. It is likely that the animal was simply forgotten in autumn and has been left to fend for itself ever since. If this is true, this is not merely about a missing fence, but about an animal that had to endure for months without any care in a known wolf territory. This is neglect in the true sense of the word.

This makes the failures even more incomprehensible. Anyone who has a chicken coop in their garden builds an enclosure that keeps the fox out, not because the law demands it, but because it is a matter of course. Anyone who leaves chickens unprotected is rightly considered negligent. That the same logic apparently does not apply to sheep, goats, and fallow deer kept by hobby animal owners is difficult to explain, except by the fact that until now no consequences have been threatened.

The fox is not a protected animal, and yet every chicken owner protects their animals from it. The wolf is protected, and yet one may apparently leave sheep and goats with impunity overnight in enclosures with fence holes or simply forget them on the alpine pasture for the entire winter. This is logic that cannot be reconciled with either animal welfare or common sense.

The law is clear – the practice is not

The requirements are unambiguously regulated in Switzerland:

The Animal Welfare Ordinance requires that animal owners take all reasonable measures to prevent unnecessary pain, suffering, or harm. Anyone who knows they are operating in a wolf territory – and this has been known in the canton of Ticino for years – must protect their operation accordingly. Wolf-proof electric fences, livestock guardian dogs, stable housing at night: These measures are reasonable, they are financially subsidizable, and they work.

For enclosure keeping of deer, Article 9 of the Wild Animal Ordinance explicitly stipulates: fences at least two meters high, constructed so that predators have no access. Anyone who issues a permit for such keeping without checking these requirements acts unlawfully.

Under the Animal Welfare Act, not only active animal abuse is punishable. Negligent omission is also punishable. The deliberate failure to act in the face of a foreseeable and avoidable danger. This applies to animal owners. And it applies to authorities.

Who protects, who must protect?

In public discourse, calls for culling are reflexively made after every wolf attack. The wolf is supposed to pay the price for human failure. This is not only ecologically shortsighted, it is a reversal of responsibility.

The wolf behaves according to its species. It is an opportunist that strikes prey where it is easily accessible. Anyone who leaves sheep overnight in a pasture with fence holes, who keeps fallow deer behind a fence that does not meet legal requirements, who foregoes protective measures despite known wolf presence, delivers their animals to the wolf on a silver platter.

And an authority that tolerates this bears co-responsibility.

Worse still: This paper protection produces the very problem it claims to combat. Wolves that learn livestock are easily available specialize in this. Then the predation statistics rise. Then culls are demanded. And the actual failure – insufficient control and lack of enforcement of livestock protection obligations – remains invisible.

Thirty years of wolves – no injured humans

There is one fact that is almost never mentioned in the heated wolf debate: The wolf has been present in Switzerland again for over thirty years. Since the first recolonization in the early 1990s, despite growing packs and increasing wolf presence in all parts of the country, there has not been a single documented attack on a human.

No injured hiker. No attacked child. No assault on a farmer.

Anyone following the public debate might believe the opposite. The wolf is portrayed as an unpredictable threat, culling demands are presented with urgency, as if public safety were at stake. Yet the only real danger posed by wolves is to livestock, and even this danger would have been largely avoidable in the documented Ticino cases through legally compliant protective measures.

For comparison: In Switzerland, approximately 9,500 to 10,000 people are bitten by dogs so severely each year that medical treatment is required. This is shown by both a SUVA study (evaluation period 2003–2007) and a large-scale Swiss study from 2000/2001. Children are bitten twice as often as adults. Particularly striking: It is demonstrably often farm dogs that aggressively attack hikers and cyclists – precisely those farming operations that portray the wolf as an existential threat keep dogs on their premises that injure thousands of people every year. Nobody writes about this. There are no culling demands, no emergency ordinances, no parliamentary initiatives.

The wolf is not the problem. The problem is sheep owners who leave their animals in the valley, directly next to the farmhouse, in enclosures with fence holes, and authorities who have tolerated this without complaint for years. Making the wolf a scapegoat is convenient. It distracts from the real question: Why are protection obligations not enforced? And why must animals die for this?

What a wolf cull really costs

IG Wild beim Wild has calculated that a single wolf cull in Switzerland costs around 30,000 francs, and this estimate is still conservative. Current figures from the canton of Valais (2025) show costs of around 35,000 francs per wolf killed, in South Tyrol it was even 50,000 euros. In the canton of Ticino, approximately 33,000 francs per wolf were spent during the 2025–26 regulation period – calculated based on game warden hours – for just six killed animals. For comparison: The same amount could finance seven to ten livestock guardian dogs for an entire year – a measure that demonstrably works because it addresses the problem where it arises: in protecting the herd. As long as the state invests millions in culls that neither drive wolves from the area nor sustainably change pack dynamics, this policy remains what it is: expensive, ineffective, and carried out at taxpayers' expense.

The wolf actually even protects sheep and goats on balance. Whereas in the past around 10,000 sheep per year were driven to death in the Alps by negligent sheep breeders (diseases, accidents, falls, etc.), today with the wolf concept and herding it is only around 5,000.

What IG Wild beim Wild demands

IG Wild beim Wild has filed criminal charges with the Ministero Pubblico in Bellinzona in all ten documented cases: against the responsible livestock owners for animal cruelty through negligence, against the cantonal veterinary office for systematic failure to fulfill control and supervisory duties, and in the Bironico case additionally for unlawful permit issuance and abuse of office.

Furthermore, IG Wild beim Wild demands:

Consistent follow-up inspections. After every attack with the finding 'animals not sufficiently protected,' the veterinary office must issue binding requirements and verify their implementation. Those who fail to meet the requirements must not be allowed to keep animals.

Clear liability rules. Subsidies and direct payments for livestock owners must be tied to proof of effective livestock protection measures. Those who don't protect get no money.

Transparency regarding enforcement practices. Canton Ticino must disclose how many inspections have been conducted since 2020, how many violations were documented, and how many proceedings were actually initiated. This is a matter of democratic accountability. The template texts for Canton Ticino on wildbeimwild.com show how such demands can be implemented through parliamentary channels.

Official consequences. If it emerges that the veterinary office systematically looked the other way, those responsible there must also be held accountable.

Animal protection doesn't end at the barn door

It's time to conduct this debate honestly. Protecting livestock from wolf attacks is not a question of whether, but how. The means are known, tested, and affordable. What's missing is the political will for enforcement.

As long as authorities document attack incidents without taking action, livestock owners will continue to neglect their protection duties. And as long as this remains without consequences, more animals will suffer and die. Unnecessarily, preventably, unlawfully. Ten cases in five months demonstrate this impressively. The Sonvico case, where a second attack occurred at the same location within just five weeks, shows exemplarily: the official finding 'animals not sufficiently protected' remains without consequences.

Paper protection is not animal protection. And an authority that fails to fulfill its control duties is not a protection agency.

More on this in the dossier: Hunting and Animal Protection

Further reading: Criminal charge: Wolf kills sheep in Ticino · Eleven fallow deer killed – and again nobody looks closely · Dossier: Wolf Switzerland · All template texts for cantonal initiatives · All dossiers