Ticino hunting 2026/27: incidents, violations and developments at a glance

The 2026/27 hunting season in Ticino opened on 5 September 2026. With the start of the high hunt, some 1,800 hobby hunters are out and about in the canton.

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05.09.2026
Sat 08:44

From «user» to «fauna manager»: how Corti reinterprets the quadrupling of kills as responsibility

On the eve of the opening of the high hunt, Davide Corti, president of the Ticino hobby hunters' federation, declared that the modern Alpine hunter is not a «user» but a «manager of Alpine fauna». He supplies the decisive figure himself: when he obtained his hunting licence, around 1,600 ungulates a year were killed in Ticino; today the figure is about 7,000. What is being sold here as grown «responsibility» and «management» is in truth a quadrupling of the killing. A manager whose only measurable achievement consists in killing four times as many animals as before is not engaged in nature conservation, but is justifying the expansion of hobby hunting with a new label.

Particularly brazen is Corti's handling of the increased pressure on wild animals: tourism and leisure use are to blame, he says, not hobby hunting. Yet hikers, bikers and tourists do not kill or torment wild animals. Hobby hunting does, and in Ticino practically all year round. Taken together, summer hunting, the high hunt, fox and wild boar hunting as well as wolf regulation create a system in which wild animals are hunted or disturbed by unnecessary hobby hunting activities during large parts of the year. For many of the animals affected, a reliable, long period of rest across the canton is barely discernible.

Hunting seasons in Ticino at a glance

• Summer wild boar hunting: June to August; in June on open ground at dusk, in July and August at night from assigned high seats in the forest.
• High hunt: 5 to 19 September and 23 to 27 September 2026.
• Fox hunting («Caccia bassa»): in accordance with the annual cantonal seasonal regulations; in the winter months, depending on the area and authorisation, with additional methods.
• Late-autumn hunt for red deer and roe deer: possible follow-on hunt after the high hunt if the cantonal kill targets are not met; dates for 2026/27 still open.
• Winter hunt for wild boars: by cantonal order; dates for 2026/27 still open.
• Proactive wolf regulation: by cantonal order within the permit period applicable in each case.

Hardly a month remains free. Corti's reference to tourism distracts from precisely that.

Silencers: «only advantages»? Two Ticino cases say the opposite

With the newly permitted silencers, too, Corti makes no effort to weigh things up: they supposedly have «only advantages». How these advantages can play out in the hands of hobby hunters has been demonstrated twice within a few months by that very same canton. A Ticino hobby hunter was convicted as a poacher, with a silencer, a night vision device and illegal bait traps. And in the femicide of Faido committed by a hobby hunter, nobody heard the fatal shot fired at the 56-year-old woman, which is why the police assume a silencer was used. The spread of silencers through exemption permits under hunting law is therefore not a pure «advantage», but a problem of control with real victims — and not only in the animal world.

05.09.2026
Sat 06:51

The Ticino Office for Hunting and Fishing (UCP) is calling on the public to report sightings of wolf pups born this year, giving the date, the location and, where possible, photo or video material. The authority openly states that the purpose is to facilitate applications for the «proactive regulation» of wolf packs. One day earlier, the Ticino Council of State decided to have up to two thirds of the young wolves born in the current year killed in the Molare and Lepontino packs – with the involvement of hobby hunters.

The IG Wild beim Wild therefore does not recommend reporting such sightings to the UCP. The requested information demonstrably serves neither independent scientific monitoring, nor herd protection, nor a low-conflict coexistence, but rather the preparation of pre-emptive killings of wolf pups. This runs counter to a wildlife protection that takes social pack structures, natural regulation and the ecological function of the wolf seriously. Intact natural dynamics also matter for protection forests: predators can influence the spatial use and behaviour of ungulates and thereby counteract locally excessive browsing damage.

Moreover, wolves do not multiply indefinitely in one place. Young animals disperse, settle vacant and suitable habitats and connect populations across cantonal and national borders throughout the entire continent.

Original UCP announcement

Segnalazione di giovani lupi – Per agevolare le richieste di regolazione proattiva dei branchi di lupo in Ticino, l’UCP invita a segnalare eventuali avvistamenti di giovani lupi dell’anno. Le segnalazioni, indicando la data e il luogo dell’avvistamento e corredate, se possibile, da fotografie o video, possono essere inoltrate a:

4 settembre 2026 – Attualità, Dipartimento del territorio

04.09.2026
Fri 14:51

The wolf as scapegoat: official figures expose who is really failing

Official figures from the UCP Bellinzona («Lupo – Predazioni 2026», as of 3 September) show it mercilessly: of 108 farm animals killed by wolves this year, a mere 4 were adequately protected — not even 4 per cent. In 96 per cent of the kills, the animal keepers had quite simply failed to meet their statutory duty of protection. Nevertheless it is the wolf that is regulated, hunted and released for killing, while those actually responsible go unpunished. As Wild beim Wild has already documented in the case of Paudo and in its analysis of the enforcement practice of the veterinary office, this is not an isolated case but a system: for years Ticino has tolerated unprotected herds in known wolf areas, has not penalised the violations and then makes the predator pay for its own failure of oversight.

04.09.2026
Fri 11:25

Record cull of red deer: even the organised hobby hunters doubt the official justification

The canton has drastically intensified the hunting of red deer in recent years: 2’163 animals during the 2025 high hunt, compared with 1’787 in 2022. Tellingly, even the cantonal hunters' federation FCTI contradicted the authorities' assumption of a growing population in 2021 and warned of a «merciless war» against red deer. With the chamois population, the pattern is reversed: the maximum quota of 800 animals has never been reached since 2022, and in the Gambarogno-Tamaro-Lema area the population collapsed so severely that hunting had to be suspended there for three years. Kill figures therefore say little about whether the killing is ecologically justified; above all they reflect the canton's own release policy. Following the 2025 high hunt, Ticino also recorded more than 140 self-reports and 19 licence withdrawals for serious violations, including a case of poaching with a silenced weapon and a thermal imaging device. More on this in the detailed article.

04.09.2026
Fri 10:54

Season opens with a 50-metre safety distance, the increase promised since 2019 is still missing

Since 5 September, some 1’800 hobby hunters have again been out and about across the canton during the high hunt, in two phases running until 27 September. One detail shows just how precariously the protection of the public is calibrated: according to the Office for Hunting and Fishing, hobby hunters need only keep 50 metres' distance from residential buildings, campsites and nature trails, the length of a swimming pool. After serious hunting accidents in the autumn of 2019, in which among others a chimney sweep wearing a high-visibility vest was shot dead, the canton announced an increase to 200 metres. It was never implemented; to this day the 50-metre rule applies. Since July 2026, silencers have also been permitted, which makes shots near settlements quieter, but not safer. In the Blenio valley, where the high hunt is now beginning, the Faido/Leontica case also continues to reverberate: a hobby hunter shot his ex-wife dead and blew up a house, further evidence of the recurring pattern of legal access to firearms and violence in the hunting milieu. More on this in the detailed article.

03.09.2026
Thu 16:58

Ticino authorises the killing of the Molare and Lepontino packs without a single proven livestock kill

On 3 September, with the blessing of the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), the Council of State ordered the killing of up to two thirds of the young animals born in 2026 in the Molare and Lepontino packs, to be carried out in part by specially trained hobby hunters. For neither Molare nor Lepontino does the canton cite a single livestock kill attributed to the pack in question as justification; the cantonal reasoning is deliberately kept general. Under the revised hunting ordinance, the mere evidence of two or more pups born this year is already sufficient, a killing on spec, without any proof of individual misconduct. The orders are explicitly aimed at the «giovani lupi» and even instruct the hobby hunters not to shoot when animals are of roughly equal size, so as not to hit a parent animal. What is punished, then, is not a pack that has demonstrably caused damage, but the mere fact that it has reproduced. More on this in the detailed article.

Background

• Dossier: How many hunting accidents happen in Switzerland?
• Dossier: Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland