What Did the 2022 JSG Revision Change?

The step-by-step revision of the Swiss Hunting and Wildlife Protection Act (JSG) and the Hunting Ordinance (JSV) has made pre-emptive wolf culls possible and considerably weakened species protection in Switzerland.

Environmental organisations criticise the changes as a breach of the Bern Convention. The Council of Europe has opened a formal investigation.

What is the JSG and why does it matter?

The Federal Act on Hunting and the Protection of Wild Mammals and Birds (JSG) is the central federal law governing both hunting and the protection of wild animals in Switzerland. It is given concrete form by the Hunting Ordinance (JSV), which the Federal Council can issue. This dual structure (act and ordinance) allows the Federal Council to make far-reaching changes without a popular vote, as long as they remain within the legal framework.

As the Hunting Laws and Oversight dossier shows, the fundamental problem is that players close to hunting have a major hand in shaping legislation, through committees, consultation procedures and direct political networks. The Hunting Lobby in Switzerland dossier demonstrates that JagdSchweiz, with over 30,000 members and a parliamentary group in the Federal Parliament, systematically influences legislation.

What was the 2020 JSG referendum?

A first comprehensive JSG revision was put to the people in 2020 and rejected in a referendum. The bill would have allowed cantons to cull wolves even without proven damage. Nature conservation organisations, including Pro Natura and WWF, successfully campaigned against it. A majority of voters rejected any weakening of wolf protection.

What was changed by ordinance after the referendum?

Although the 2020 popular vote had signalled a clear rejection, the Federal Council used the room for manoeuvre offered by the JSV to implement key elements of the rejected bill by ordinance. The JSV was amended to allow "proactive regulation": since then, wolves may be shot if they are in the vicinity of settlements, even without any livestock having been killed.

Wolf in Switzerland dossier documents how this practice has been implemented especially aggressively in Valais. In the 2025/2026 season, 27 wolves were killed, 3 through individual permits and 24 through pack regulation. The cost of these kills amounted to CHF 0.8 to 1 million, including professional hunters, helicopters, coordination and administration, around CHF 35,000 per wolf killed.

What specifically changed with the 2023/2025 JSV amendments?

Besides wolf policy, the revisions also cover other areas relevant to hunting. Silencers on hunting weapons were removed from the list of prohibited aids and have been expressly permitted since 1 February 2025. Night hunting has been extended in individual cantons: Bern permits full-moon night hunting, and the Zurich cantonal government approved further liberalisations in June 2025. Drones for hunting have been gradually admitted.

These developments follow a pattern that the Hunting Lobby in Switzerland dossier describes as a "strategy of small steps": each change is packaged as an efficiency gain or a practical adjustment, but taken together they amount to a systematic liberalisation in favour of recreational hunting.

What do environmental organisations criticise?

Pro Natura, WWF Switzerland, Gruppe Wolf Schweiz and BirdLife criticise several points of the JSG/JSV revision. First: proactive pack regulation is incompatible with the Bern Convention. The Bureau of the Bern Convention stated this explicitly in October 2024. Second: kills are carried out without proof of adequate herd protection measures, although the 2008 Wolf Concept for Switzerland prescribes this as a precondition. Third: kill quotas create pressure and lead to systematic wrongful kills, at least three in 2022 alone.

In addition, scientists argue in an open letter with over 200 signatories that killing alpha animals destroys the social structure of packs, leading to a higher reproduction rate, less stable behaviour and more conflicts, the exact opposite of the intended "regulation".

What are the consequences of the revision for the conservation status of the wolf?

A species' conservation status is considered favourable if the population size is stable or growing, sufficient habitat is available and there is no tendency towards decline. In Switzerland, none of these criteria is unproblematic: the wolf population of around 300 animals in 30 packs is small by European standards. Targeted pack culls that hit the alpha animals destabilise population structures.

Wolf in Switzerland dossier documents the example of the Jura's Marchairuz pack: after the alpha female was shot in error in 2022, the pack's survival was at risk. Such events are not an exception; they are a systemic consequence of a policy that places kill quotas above species protection.

Can Parliament reverse the revision?

The changes made at ordinance level can be reversed by the Federal Council. At the level of the act itself, a parliamentary decision or a fresh popular initiative would be needed. Animal welfare and nature conservation organisations have announced that they will challenge the wolf policy politically and legally.

With its investigation of December 2024, the Council of Europe has put strong foreign-policy pressure on Switzerland. As a signatory to the Bern Convention, Switzerland has committed itself to certain minimum standards, and this commitment is not negotiable.

Why is the revision a precedent?

What happens to the wolf today can happen to the lynx tomorrow. The Dossier on the lynx in Switzerland expressly warns that wolf policy creates a precedent for other predators: once pre-emptive culls of wolves are normalised, the same instruments will also be used against the lynx. The FOEN lynx concept already permits regulatory culls today if the lynx takes too many animals out of the “hunting register”, that is, eats too many roe deer and red deer that recreational hunters want to shoot themselves.

This conflict of interest is the heart of the entire debate: it is not public safety that is at stake, but the economic and leisure interests of around 30,000 recreational hunters who do not want to share their “resource”.

What alternatives are there to the current wolf policy?

An evidence-based wolf policy would rest on three pillars: first, consistent herd protection as a precondition for any kill; second, independent scientific monitoring; third, transparency in all decisions. The Dossier on Herd Protection in Switzerland shows that protection is demonstrably more effective than killing when it is implemented consistently.

Conclusion

The 2022 JSG revision is not a technical adjustment process but a political change of course: away from species protection and towards the logic of recreational hunting. That this change of course was carried out by ordinance, and thus bypassed a popular referendum, shows how effectively the hunting lobby knows how to use the instruments of the Swiss political system. The formal investigation by the Council of Europe is a wake-up call: international law applies even when a lobby lobbies against it.

Further Content

• Wolf in Switzerland: facts, politics and hunting
• Swiss Hunting Law
• Hunting Laws and Control
• Herd protection in Switzerland
• hunting lobby in Switzerland
• The Lynx in Switzerland