Valais: Wolf Found Dead with Gunshot Wound
The public prosecutor's office has launched an investigation.
On 9 April 2019, a dead wolf was discovered on the bank of the Rhône near Grengiols in the Valais and subsequently transported to the animal hospital in Bern. The animal was killed with a firearm.
The carcass was discovered by a passer-by at around 3:30 p.m. and reported to the cantonal wildlife, hunting and fishing authority. The Valais cantonal police recovered the dead animal, which showed a gunshot wound. The cantonal police declined to provide further details about the exact circumstances at the site where it was found.
A similar incident had occurred in March 2016. At that time, a heavily decomposed wolf carcass was discovered on the bank of the Rhône near Raron VS. The animal, designated M63, died as a result of gunshot wounds and was found by a fisherman.
The criminal investigation was closed in 2017 due to lack of evidence, but was reopened following the emergence of new elements. This ultimately led to charges being brought against a retired German national. However, he was acquitted in June 2018 by the district court in Brig due to insufficient circumstantial evidence.
In February 2017, the dead female wolf F16 was found in the Val d’Anniviers in Lower Valais, with a bullet lodged in her shoulder. A year later, a Valais hunter accidentally shot and killed the female wolf F28 during a fox hunt. He immediately notified the authorities. An investigation was also launched in this case.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. The scientific evidence is presented in the overview Studies on the Effects of Recreational Hunting.
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.
