Wolves shot in western Switzerland

A wolf at Garenne zoo in canton Vaud in 2016. Keystone / Christian Brun

The authorities in canton Vaud killed two wolves northwest of Lausanne on Monday as part of “wolf control” measures. They are the fifth and sixth wolves to be shot in the canton in western Switzerland since March 2022.

Wildlife supervisors shot two young male wolves belonging to a pack in the Mont Tendre region near the village of Montricher.

The two wolf cubs “were shot shortly before 9pm on an Alpine pasture located on the territory of the municipality of Montricher. The shots were carried out while an adult wolf preceded the three wolf cubs of the pack”, said the Vaud authorities in a statement on Tuesday.

The operation took place in accordance with the conditions set by the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), it said. The animal remains were sent to the Institute of Animal Pathology (FIWI) of the University of Bern.

+ Wolves kill fewer Swiss lambs despite growing packs

On August 28, the federal authorities had authorised Vaud to shoot the two young wolves from this new pack installed in the Vaud Jura region in view of attacks perpetrated on young cattle in the region. The authorisation ran until March 31, 2024.

Dozen attacks

Since June, a dozen attacks on young cattle have been perpetrated in the Mont Tendre region, where a couple of wolves settled last spring.

+ Wolf hunting controls relaxed in Switzerland

Monitoring carried out using camera traps had also made it possible to establish during the month of August that this couple had since given birth to at least three cubs. The new pack in the Vaud Jura follows others in the Risoud and Marchairuz regions.

The authorised killings had only been authorised within a perimeter corresponding to the presumed territory of the pack, near mountain pastures or inhabited areas, and in the presence of adult wolves.

The Vaud authorities had sent their request to the FOEN “in view of the significant damage recorded in the region, and after having been able to certify the birth of cubs, as required by the federal legal framework”, the statement said.

Six wolves killed so far

Vaud recalls that the regulation is part of a series of measures adopted as part of the Vaud Wolf Plan 2023 to better manage the coexistence between human activities and the wolf. It intervenes in addition to the reinforcement of aid for the protection of herds and monitoring.

To date, six regulation shots have already been carried out on Vaud territory. The two carried out in March 2022 and the other two in November 2022 targeted the Marchairuz pack. For the fourth, wildlife wardens had shot the wrong wolf, an adult male instead of a wolf cub.

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here. 

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].