FOEN rejects wolf cull in Graubünden
The FOEN rejects the canton of Graubünden's request to shoot two young wolves from the Stagias pack. Livestock protection was insufficient.
The Federal Office for the Environment FOEN has rejected the canton of Graubünden's application for a shooting permit for two young wolves from the Stagias pack.
Criteria for intervention not met
On 3 September 2021, the canton of Graubünden submitted a request to the FOEN for regulation of the Stagias pack. The FOEN's review of the submitted documents revealed that the criteria for an intervention in the pack are not met: The losses among protected livestock herds fall below the threshold of ten animals killed that is required for an intervention. This is because not all of the livestock animals listed as killed by the canton were protected. The FOEN therefore rejected the request on the basis of the Hunting Act and the Hunting Ordinance revised in mid-July 2021.
Biased communication and culls in violation of federal law
In its decree on the regulation of the Beverin pack, the canton of Graubünden cites “unprovoked aggressive behaviour” by wolves towards humans, on the grounds that a wolf growled at a shepherdess. The FOEN clearly rejects this characterisation and points out that it was merely the shepherdess's herding dog that was growled at. There are therefore major discrepancies between what was communicated in the media and what is recorded in the official documents.
In addition to this biased communication, attempts are also being made to carry out wolf culls in a manner that violates federal law. To this end, the canton requested that the culls also be carried out within the federal hunting reserve, which was likewise rejected by the FOEN, writes Gruppe Wolf Schweiz.
It is of the utmost importance to scrutinise matters very carefully, particularly when it comes to recreational hunting, hunting administrations, and recreational hunters. Nowhere else is there so much manipulation through falsehoods and fake news.
Dossier: Wolf in Switzerland: Facts, Politics, and the Limits of Hunting
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More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier The Role and Criticism of Recreational Hunters we shed light on the training, power and self-image of recreational hunters. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
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.
