Ticino trains 88 hobby hunters for nocturnal wolf kills

Ticino is now relying more heavily on hobby hunters for wolf regulation.

As part of a two-year pilot project, 88 private hunters (hereinafter «hobby hunters») were given additional training so that in future they can support the 22 cantonal game wardens in enforcing kill orders. Four of these «auxiliary hunters» per game warden will be equipped with thermal imaging cameras and may now also be deployed at night and outside the regular hunting season. This was reported by the Italian-language Swiss radio and television broadcaster RSI on 17 June 2026.

In action from September

According to Tiziano Putelli, head of the cantonal office for hunting and fishing, the risk of attacks rises when livestock is driven up to the Alpine pastures. Some of the Alpine farms are today considered «not protectable». The first selected hobby hunters are to be ready for action from September, at the start of the regulation period for packs, which lasts until January. The pilot project is based on the Valais model and goes back to a motion by Giovanni Berardi adopted by the Grand Council on 23 March 2026. The maximum costs amount to 250’000 francs per year for compensation and administration.

The background is a balance sheet that is, from the canton's point of view, inadequate: in 2025 the game wardens needed around 3’200 hours to kill 6 of 24 wolves. The office cites the impassable terrain, the lack of roads and scarce resources as the reasons.

What the «special training» comprises

On closer inspection, the term «special training» turns out to be modest. The official page of the office for hunting and fishing speaks merely of «momenti formativi», i.e. information evenings. Two dates are specifically mentioned: 23 April and 20 May 2026, each at 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium of administrative building 3 in Bellinzona. The key requirement for participation is carrying the hunting licence. Attendance is valid indefinitely and does not have to be repeated annually.

In addition, according to the report by the «Corriere del Ticino», candidates must hold the hunting aptitude certificate, bring the necessary equipment including night vision optics, and complete specific courses on safety and the use of the aids; a practical part in the field is also planned. By way of comparison: in Valais, the corresponding training in the previous year lasted barely a half-day event.

The background is revealing. As early as 2025, hobby hunters were authorised to help. Of 20 wolves released for the kill, only five were shot at the time, all by game wardens. The hobby hunters did not fire a single shot, because the risks, including legal ones in the event of an error, were too great for them.

Effectiveness of regulation disputed

So much for the facts. From the perspective of wildlife protection, the scientific basis of the whole undertaking deserves a critical assessment, because the assumption that more kills lead to fewer kills of livestock is anything but certain.

A study spanning more than 25 years from Idaho, Montana and Wyoming (Wielgus & Peebles, PLOS ONE 2014) concluded that the lethal shooting of wolves is, in the following year, more likely associated with more livestock kills over a larger area. The mechanism: killing individual animals destroys the social pack structure, which can lead to more breeding pairs and thus to more attacks. A later methodologically critical replication (Poudyal, Baral & Asah 2016) did put the long-term effect into perspective, but nonetheless found: for every wolf killed in the same year, the expected number of sheep killed rises by 2.2 percent. An older analysis of 923 cases from Minnesota (1979–1998) likewise showed that trapping wolves did not substantially reduce the kills of the following year.

In Switzerland, too, preventive regulation is professionally disputed. The biologist and former FOEN deputy director Willy Geiger considers it probably not effective: new gaps in the territory would prompt wolves to reproduce even more strongly and make it easier for migrating animals to move in. Even from quarters that fundamentally favour kills, it is said that regulation does not fail because of overly strict protection, but because of the intelligence of the animals; the complete breaking up of a pack often fails because of the experienced adult animals.

Practice in Valais illustrates this strikingly: around 1,300 hobby hunters completed the special training there and fanned out from September to January with night vision and thermal imaging devices. The Nanz Valley pack nonetheless lived on; of nine wolves killed, only three belonged to the pack, and the lead she-wolf killed another animal again in March. The comparison shows: even with massive deployment, the effect remains limited.

Several studies consistently point in the same direction: effective herd protection is preferable to killing. International review papers also stress that lethal wolf killing collides with protective frameworks such as the EU Habitats Directive and, even when individual problem animals are killed, meets strong public resistance. That a population can respond to hunting with increased reproduction is also seen in other species: in Bielefeld, for instance, the more raccoons are killed, the more take their place. And in Valais, the Chablais pack documents a double reproduction despite regulatory pressure. Other cantons too are increasingly relying on hobby hunters to regulate predators, as the example of Schwyz shows. A pilot project sending 88 hobby hunters out into the night with thermal imaging technology thus relies on a means whose benefit for protecting Alpine farming is questionable and whose harm to a protected wild animal is foreseeable.

Further articles on the topic can be found in our sections Wild animals and Hunting act.