Pascal Wolf has submitted petitions for a ban on fox hunting in more than 12 cantons. The reaction of the Luzerner Zeitung exemplifies how the media uncritically adopt narratives from the hunting lobby – even though the petition text provides watertight scientific evidence.
How hobby hunters are contaminating the wildlife discourse
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A lawyer from Lucerne has filed petitions against fox hunting in over 12 cantons – with watertight scientific evidence. The media and animal rights groups are failing. An analysis.
A lawyer from Lucerne named Pascal Wolf has submitted petitions in more than 12 cantons – including Zug, Basel-Landschaft and Lucerne – calling for an end to red fox hunting.
In Bern, cantonal councilor von Arx has already submitted a motion based on this. Cantonal councilor Sabine Hesselhaus is active in the Lucerne parliament. And the cantons of Zug and Basel-Landschaft have initiated scientific investigations.
This is a remarkable success for a lone fighter without the backing of an association. And yet the headlines read: “Ban fox hunting? Not only hunters are against it” (Luzerner Zeitung) and “Basel-Landschaft deals with fox hunting petition – authorities promise clarification” (Oberbaselbieter Zeitung). The tone: skeptical. The voices: hunters and administrators. The scientific community: marginal.
What Wolf is actually demanding
Wolf’s petition does not demand the immediate abolition of fox hunting. It demands something more modest and legally unavoidable: that the government council examine and report whether there is any scientific basis for fox hunting at all.
The petition lists six specific research requests, based on studies from wildlife biology, parasitology, and epidemiology. Here are the key findings:
- Rabies was eliminated in Switzerland through vaccine baits – not through hunting (BAG)
- Fox tapeworm can only be effectively reduced by deworming baits; hunting is ineffective (König et al. 2019, Comte et al. 2013, Takahashi et al. 2013)
- Distemper and mange : Hunting is counterproductive because killing territorial animals leads to increased immigration and faster disease spread (Prentice 2012)
- Population control : Fox populations remain stable despite intensive hunting – immigration and increased reproduction quickly compensate for culls (Kämmerle et al. 2019, Baker et al. 2002)
- Ground-nesting birds and hares : The decline is scientifically attributed to habitat loss and intensive agriculture, not to foxes (Knauer et al. 2010, Spaar et al. 2012); in the Wauwilermoos, fencing provides protection – not fox hunting (Korner, Hohl & Horch)
- Traffic accidents : Hunting destabilizes territories and increases migratory behavior – which tends to increase the accident rate.
This isn’t activism. This is documented science. And Wolf provided the journalist with all the sources, including direct hyperlinks.
The newspaper article: What’s missing
Chief reporter Alexander von Däniken of the Luzerner Zeitung had the complete petition, all scientific sources, and Wolf’s written responses. Wolf explicitly requested permission to review the presentation of his statements before publication. Von Däniken refused, pointing out that written responses did not require authorization.
What appeared in the article: a quote from hunting association official Fabian Stadelmann , positioned as an objective dissenting voice. Science: barely present. The example of Geneva (50 years without fox hunting, no significant problems): marginal. Luxembourg: not mentioned.
This is not an isolated incident. It is a structural problem.
While CH Media hides the article behind its paywall and even Pascal Wolf – who provided the editorial team with the entire scientific foundation – only grants access for a fee, wildbeimwild.com remains the only platform that presents the complete picture. This is no coincidence, but rather by design. Those engaged in civil society information work should not be dependent on commercial media for fair reporting or even making their contributions accessible at all. We know this pattern all too well – including from the Badener Tagblatt: As a source, you invest time, energy, and resources, provide meticulously researched material, and in return, you are asked to take out a subscription – for an article that, at best, only half-heartedly presents the facts you provided. For future media contacts, we therefore recommend stipulating in writing from the outset that, as the information provider, you are entitled to proofread the finished article before publication and at least receive the PDF. This is not legally enforceable, but it creates a clear expectation and highlights the asymmetry should it nevertheless occur.
The wrong expert
Local press, animal welfare organizations, and politicians still believe that hunters possess expert knowledge. When it comes to all kinds of nature-related topics—wolves, foxes, deer, forest health, wild boar populations—the local hobby hunter is reflexively consulted and presented as an “expert,” without any mention of their vested interests. The dossier “Media and Hunting Issues” from wildbeimwild.com analyzes this mechanism in detail.
The problem begins with training. Courses for the hunting exam are conducted by individuals who don’t require formal qualifications and whose knowledge stems primarily from hunting literature and club traditions – not from independent wildlife research. After training, the hobby hunter moves within the echo chamber of the hunting press. Within hunting clubs, members reinforce each other’s beliefs. This creates a closed group that is hardly receptive to new information – yet presents itself to the outside world as “nature experts.” Because this group is well-organized and easily accessible, newsrooms structurally and repeatedly rely on it. Not intentionally, but out of habit.
The newspaper report about Wolf’s petitions follows this exact pattern. The president of a gamekeepers’ association is positioned as an objective voice against the ban. Scientific counter-evidence – Luxembourg, the Canton of Geneva, the National Park, population biology – is omitted. The position paper from JagdSchweiz (the Swiss hunting association), which declares fox hunting to be “sensible and useful,” is not questioned.
The facts are clear: Luxembourg abolished fox hunting in 2015, and the predicted catastrophes have not materialized. According to official figures from the Luxembourg Veterinary Administration, the fox tapeworm infection rate in foxes has fallen from 40 percent (2014) to 17.6 percent (2020) – more than halved. Not a single case of alveolar echinococcosis in humans has been reported since then. The Luxembourg government sees no reason to lift the hunting ban ( Luxembourgish Word, 2022 ). In the canton of Geneva, wildlife management has functioned successfully for 50 years without recreational hunting. No one hunts in the national park, and there are neither fox plagues nor ecological collapses.
The Lucerne Animal Welfare Association: When PR communication replaces substantive policy
Particularly revealing is the position of Lea Bischof-Meier, president of the Lucerne Animal Welfare Association. According to newspaper reports, she advocates for “clearly regulated hunting”—that is, for maintaining fox hunting, which senselessly and without justification claims the lives of up to 25,000 animals annually. This is not an animal welfare position. This is hunting lobby communication disguised as animal welfare rhetoric.
Her professional profile identifies her as a politician and PR entrepreneur – co-owner of a company for “PR, advertising, and communication.” Wildlife biology, ecology, or veterinary medicine: none of the above. What she does bring, however, are twenty years in local politics and a keen sense for formulating arguments that garner consensus. When an animal welfare organization bases its position on fox hunting not on scientific evidence, but on what sounds politically acceptable, it has abandoned its mission.
Pascal Wolf himself summed it up perfectly: “These measures seem ineffective to me; otherwise, foxes wouldn’t still be hunted without reason.” An organization whose president sides with the hobby hunters on the canton’s most obvious animal welfare issue emphatically confirms this assessment.
Lucerne also practices hunting in burrows and nobody protests
While Pascal Wolf’s petition questions the scientific basis of fox hunting, the canton of Lucerne simultaneously practices an even more brutal hunting method: den hunting. Hunting dogs are sent into fox and badger dens to corner the animals underground. They are harassed, injured, or suffocated in the den before being shot outside. The Swiss Animal Protection Association (STS) states in its official position paper: “From an animal welfare perspective, den hunting and waterfowl hunting are unacceptable. The use of ground dogs is not justifiable from an animal welfare standpoint.” The cantons of Thurgau, Zurich, Bern, and Vaud have already banned den hunting. Lucerne has not.
Motion 23.3303, “Ban on cruel fox hunting in dens,” is currently before the Federal Parliament. The website wildbeimwild.com also documents this method extensively in its dossier on den hunting . The fact that the Lucerne Animal Welfare Association, under President Lea Bischof-Meier, remains silent on both issues—the senseless fox hunting and the den hunting—completes the failure of organized animal welfare in the canton.
Basel too: Same media logic, same gaps
Not only the Luzerner Zeitung, but also the Oberbaselbieter Zeitung – also a CH Media publication – reports on Wolf’s petition. The article correctly summarizes the petition’s content, but here too, the crucial point is missing: The Basel Veterinary and Health Directorate announces a statement only for June 2026 – not a substantive engagement with the scientific findings, but rather a reference to administrative jurisdiction.
This is telling. The cantonal bureaucracy protects fox hunting not with arguments, but with procedures. Wolf’s petition has thus achieved exactly what it was intended to: it forces cantonal governments to take a written stance, revealing that “tradition” and “jurisdiction” are used as answers to studies and case studies.
What Wolf himself says
In an email exchange with the Luzerner Zeitung, Wolf precisely formulates his position:
“If one wants to kill around 20,000 animals every year, the moral burden of proof for justifying this clearly lies with those who have this in mind.”
And when asked how to explain fox hunting to the local population: “How do you intend to explain to your children why 20,000 foxes are killed in Switzerland every year? I imagine that’s difficult, and I trust in the common sense of the population. No life should be taken without reason.”
What is needed now
Pascal Wolf’s petitions in over 12 cantons present a rare opportunity: A lawyer – not an NGO, not an “animal rights activist” – is raising a fundamental question of the rule of law. Cantonal governments are obligated to respond on a scientific basis. This is the right leverage.
What is lacking is reinforcement: from animal welfare organizations, from independent wildlife biologists, from media professionals who are prepared to introduce the hobby hunter next time not as an expert, but as what he is: a special interest group.
wildbeimwild.com will follow and report on further developments in the cantons.
Further resources
- SRF DOK: «Everything for the foxes – A wild animal, loved and hunted»
- Tagesanzeiger: “Our actions are stupid”: Zurich hunter refuses to shoot healthy foxes
- wildbeimwild.com: Dossier Media and Hunting Topics
- wildbeimwild.com: No to fox hunting: How a Lucerne initiative exposes the lack of facts in hunting practices
- wildbeimwild.com: Hobby hunters spread diseases
- wildbeimwild.com: Hobby hunting promotes diseases
More on the topic of hobby hunting: In our dossier on hunting, we compile fact checks, analyses and background reports.