Ticino hunt 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, around 1,800 recreational hunters are out and about in the canton.

Just how deeply recreational hunting is culturally rooted in Ticino is shown by the article The psychology of recreational hunting in the canton of Ticino.

Ticker

22.09.2026
Tue 12:16

Dead red deer as a display piece: ethologist takes aim at the selfie culture of Ticino's recreational hunters

For days, a photo has been circulating in the Luganese region showing a recreational hunter driving through the streets with a killed red deer on a trailer. For ethologist Nash Pettinaroli, this is no isolated incident but a symptom of a wider trend: more and more recreational hunters are putting their dead prey on display — on social media, in WhatsApp statuses, as selfies next to the carcass. Pettinaroli calls this kind of display in an interview with tio.ch «repulsive» and warns of a creeping desensitisation: anyone who turns the death of a living being into a trophy photo erodes the empathy of an entire society.

The ethologist also rejects the most popular justification narrative. To the argument that recreational hunting regulates the ecosystem, he counters with the voices of science: zoologist Ragnar Kinzelbach, biologist Karl-Heinz Loske and the former director of Gran Paradiso National Park, Bruno Bassano, have all consistently described recreational hunting as superfluous, since intact wildlife populations regulate themselves. This is exactly what our fact check on the six central hunting-lobby myths documents as well. For Pettinaroli, in the end only one motive remains: pure pleasure. The narrative of ecosystem regulation, he says, merely serves to dress up this pleasure.

The context in which the interview appears is striking. Only recently, the president of the Ticino recreational hunting association had publicly stated that his greatest emotion was watching his daughter kill her prey. Pettinaroli, who says he has already been threatened and had his car tyres slashed, counters: how can the death of a living being move anyone?

18.09.2026
Fri 16:42

Survey in neighbouring country: 82 per cent consider recreational hunting unsafe, only 3 per cent want to promote it

Just across the Ticino border, one of the largest surveys on recreational hunting ever conducted in Europe was published this week: Ipsos Doxa surveyed 7,002 people in Italy on behalf of the Fondazione Capellino. 75 per cent want to abolish recreational hunting, phase it out, or limit it to a few emergency cases, while only 3 per cent want to promote it. 82 per cent consider it not entirely or not at all safe — explicitly including for people out in the forest and on hiking trails. Even the electorate of the governing parties, which are currently relaxing the hunting act, mostly wants the opposite. For Ticino, this is more than a glance over the fence: here, a safety distance of 50 metres from residential buildings still applies, the ongoing high hunt has already claimed two human lives, and Ticino's recreational hunters are also active across the border. A survey of this scale would be overdue in Ticino too. More on this in the detailed article.

16.09.2026
Wed 15:15

FCT president calls violations “nearly gone”, hunting report counts 186 proceedings

On tio.ch, Davide Corti, president of the Federazione Cacciatori Ticinesi, declares recreational hunting to be “scientific wildlife management”, disease prevention and environmental protection. Serious violations and poaching, he says, have “almost disappeared”. The canton's 2024 hunting report contradicts him on every point: 190 self-reports, 82 disciplinary fines, 186 infringement proceedings, nine offences referred to the public prosecutor, and at least 16 revocations of hunting rights – even 37 according to the statistical table in the same report. This is no marginal phenomenon, but the documented lower bound of an enforcement problem. In the same interview, Corti himself names the illegal use of night vision devices as the association's “main concern”; something that is supposedly gone cannot simultaneously be the biggest concern.

The alleged “ethics” must be measured against practice: 3’377 red deer, roe deer and wild boars killed during the 2024 high hunt, a record, up 48 percent from ten years earlier; 143 lactating hinds shot dead, 87 of which were brought in without a calf for inspection, which the canton records as progress. Wild boar kills have quintupled since 2000, and wildlife biology research has been explaining for two decades why high hunting pressure is precisely what drives reproduction upward. With chamois, twice as many bucks as does are killed; the canton names trophy hunting as the cause and still permits it. Corti wants to “manage” the wolf “like other species” — preventive kills of a protected predator whose protective effect, according to KORA, remains unproven to this day.

The journalist does not ask a single follow-up question, cites no figures, and mentions neither the two dead recreational hunters from the opening weekend nor the femicide in Faido, where a recreational hunter with a silencer shot a woman dead. His headline is Corti’s strongest memory from forty years of licence hunting: his daughter’s first kill. That is the most honest sentence in the whole interview, and it says more about recreational hunting than all the management jargon that came before it.To the analysis

15.09.2026
Tue 14:32

Red deer flown in by helicopter from Piedmont: provincial police confirm Ticino recreational hunter

The royal stag that was killed at the weekend in the Ossola valley and flown across the border by helicopter is a Ticino case. The commander of the Verbano-Cusio-Ossola provincial police confirms to tio.ch: the recreational hunter holds a Ticino licence and is additionally authorised in the VCO province, the helicopter belongs to a Ticino company, and the animal was set down near Cimalmotto in the municipality of Campo (Vallemaggia). What is being objected to is the overflight of a bird sanctuary without the required notifications, and the fact that the recreational hunter himself was on board, which is prohibited for hunters in Italy. The recreational hunter and the flight company must each pay a fine of over 5’000 euros. The case therefore falls entirely within Ticino’s jurisdiction; we have asked whether the Ufficio della caccia e della pesca is examining any licence-related consequences. More on this in the detailed article.

06.09.2026
Sun 12:18

54-year-old recreational hunter falls to his death during hobby hunt on Pizzo Sassariente (Locarnese)

A 54-year-old Swiss man residing in the Locarnese region died on Saturday afternoon during a hobby hunt in the Pizzo Sassariente area. The Ticino cantonal police announced this on Sunday morning.

Shortly after 4.30 pm, the joint alarm centre (CECAL) received a missing person report. A search operation involving the cantonal police, Swiss Alpine Rescue (SAS) and REGA was launched. At around 6 pm, the lifeless body was found at an altitude of around 1,450 metres on the slope of Val della Porta. According to initial findings, the man fell while hunting. The exact circumstances are being clarified by an investigation. A care team was called in to support the family.

Context: Once again, Ticino's high hunt has claimed a human life, and once again it is no “accident out of the blue”, but the predictable consequence of a leisure activity that drives people into the steepest, most fall-prone terrain, alone, off secured paths, often at dusk. The fall at 1,450 metres is part of a long series of fatal hunting accidents in the Alpine region. No red deer, no roe deer is worth a human life. Recreational hunting is not nature conservation, but a deadly risk that hunters voluntarily take on and which regularly endangers uninvolved people as well.

05.09.2026
Sat 19:08

On the first weekend of the Ticino high hunt, the season claimed its first fatality. Shortly after 1 p.m., a 69-year-old Swiss man resident in the Riviera district fell down a slope near the Riale Crenone in the Biasca area at an altitude of around 700 metres. Despite resuscitation attempts by the Rega, the emergency services were only able to confirm the man's death. A care team was called in for the relatives. According to the cantonal police, the exact circumstances of the fall are still under investigation.

The case fits a recurring pattern: the majority of fatal hunting accidents in Switzerland are not shooting accidents but falls in steep, rugged terrain into which recreational hunters venture in pursuit of their leisure pastime. That someone aged 69 should be out in such terrain to kill wild animals is not an isolated case but structurally inherent to the system.

This is precisely where the long-standing demands of IG Wild beim Wild come in. The largest age group among recreational hunters is 65+, in other words those with increasing age-related weaknesses in eyesight, concentration and reaction time. From the age of 45 onwards, the number of accidents involving people and animals rises markedly. For this reason the IG has long demanded that recreational hunters be required to undergo regular medical and psychological aptitude testing, following the Dutch model, and that an upper age limit be introduced for the active practice of recreational hunting. Both have long been taken for granted in other safety-critical activities.

On a fundamental level, IG Wild beim Wild calls for the abolition of recreational hunting and its replacement by professional, state-run wildlife management. The regulation of wild animals, where it is necessary at all, belongs in the hands of trained, salaried specialists working to clear standards, not in the leisure time of private individuals. Such a system would not only be gentler on wild animals and more soundly based in expertise, it would also help to prevent tragedies such as the one in Biasca.

Responsibility does not end with the individual recreational hunter. It is the canton that permits recreational hunting in dangerous terrain in the first place, without mandatory medical and psychological aptitude tests and without an upper age limit. As long as it clings to this system and refuses to act on the long-standing demands for greater safety, it bears, in the view of IG Wild beim Wild, political co-responsibility for the numerous deaths of recent years.

05.09.2026
Sat 08:44

From «user» to «fauna manager»: how Corti reframes a fourfold increase in kills as responsibility

On the eve of the opening of the high hunt Davide Corti, president of the Ticino recreational hunting federation, declares that the modern Alpine hunter is not a «user» but a «manager of the Alpine fauna». He supplies the decisive figure himself: when he took out his hunting licence, some 1’600 ungulates a year were killed in Ticino; today the figure is around 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 practising nature conservation, but justifying the expansion of recreational hunting under a new label.

Corti's handling of the increased pressure on wild animals is particularly brazen: tourism and leisure use are said to be to blame, not recreational hunting. Yet hikers, bikers and tourists do not kill or torment wild animals. Recreational hunting does, and in Ticino practically all year round. Taken together, the summer hunt, 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 recreational hunting activities during large parts of the year. A reliable, long period of rest across the canton is barely discernible for many of the animals affected.

Hunting seasons in Ticino at a glance

• Wild boar summer hunt: 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 season regulations; in the winter months with additional methods depending on the area and authorisation.
• 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 respective applicable authorisation period.

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

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

When it comes to 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 recreational hunters is demonstrated twice over by the same canton within just a few months. A Ticino recreational hunter was convicted as a poacher, with a silencer, night vision device and illegal lure traps. And in the femicide of Faido committed by a recreational 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 via exemption permits under hunting law is therefore not a pure «advantage», but a control problem with real victims, and not only in the animal world.

05.09.2026
Sat 06:51

The Ticino Office for Hunting and Fisheries (UCP) is calling on the public to report sightings of wolf cubs born this year, giving the date and 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 cantonal government decided to have up to two thirds of the young wolves born this year killed in the Molare and Lepontino packs – with the involvement of recreational hunters.

IG Wild beim Wild therefore does not recommend reporting such sightings to the UCP. The information requested demonstrably does not serve independent scientific monitoring, herd protection or low-conflict coexistence, but rather the preparation of pre-emptive killings of wolf cubs. This runs counter to a form of wildlife protection that takes social pack structures, natural regulation and the ecological function of the wolf seriously. An intact natural dynamic is also important for protection forests: predators can influence the spatial use and behaviour of ungulates and thereby counteract excessive browsing damage at local level.

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

Original notice from the UCP

Report of young wolves sighting – To facilitate requests for proactive regulation of wolf packs in Ticino, the UCP invites reports of any sightings of young wolves born this year. Reports, indicating the date and location of the sighting and accompanied, if possible, by photographs or videos, may be sent to:

4 September 2026 – News, Department of the Territory

04.09.2026
Fri 14:51

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

Official figures from the UCP in Bellinzona («Lupo – Predazioni 2026», as at 3 September) show mercilessly: of 108 farm animals killed by wolves so far this year, only 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 legal 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 already showed in the case of Paudo and in the analysis of the enforcement practice of the veterinary office has documented, this is not an isolated case but systematic: for years Ticino has tolerated unprotected herds in known wolf areas, fails to penalise the breaches and then makes the predator pay for its own failure to enforce.

04.09.2026
Fri 11:25

Record bag of red deer: even the organised recreational 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 campaign» against the 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 there had to be suspended 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, around 1,800 recreational hunters have once again been out and about across the canton during the high hunt, in two phases running until 27 September. Just how precariously the protection of the public is calibrated is shown by one detail: according to the Office for Hunting and Fishing, recreational hunters need only keep 50 metres’ distance from residential buildings, campsites and nature trails — the length of a swimming pool. Following serious hunting accidents in autumn 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 no safer. In the Blenio Valley, where the high hunt is now beginning, the case of Faido/Leontica also continues to reverberate: a recreational hunter shot his ex-wife 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, the Council of State ordered the killing of up to two thirds of the young born in 2026 in the Molare and Lepontino packs, to be carried out in part by specially trained recreational hunters. For neither Molare nor Lepontino does the canton cite a single livestock kill attributed to the respective pack as justification; the cantonal reasoning is deliberately kept general. Under the revised Hunting Ordinance, the mere proof of two or more cubs born this year is already sufficient — a killing on spec, without any evidence of individual misconduct. The rulings are expressly directed against the «giovani lupi» and even instruct recreational hunters not to shoot when animals are of roughly equal size, so as not to hit a parent animal. What is being punished is thus 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