The State Council in Bern is begging for help before the upcoming alpine summer – while the shepherds are orienting themselves towards Green President Glättli and flirting with vigilantism.
The wolf and the Valais – “many, far too many”.
The term does not appear anywhere in the Swiss Federal Constitution and is nevertheless omnipresent: emergency law. Forgotten after the Second World War, it became normal again for the climate youth to constantly declare a state of emergency. The Federal Council’s corona policy was based on more than a dozen emergency ordinances for two years. Referring to the emergency law, Center President Gerhard Pfister is calling on the Federal Council to support Ukraine with arms deliveries. Now the Valais cantonal government also wants the Federal Council to apply emergency law – and to do so immediately.
It’s not about war, not even about a plague. Whereby: From Valais optics it is about a long-standing fight against federal Bern and against a plague. It’s about the wolf and its exponential reproduction in the mountain canton. And most importantly, it’s about the damage it does. In the first half of the year he killed more than 100 livestock on the spring meadows. In the last five years, 75 wolves have been identified in the canton. “Too many, far too many,” said Agriculture Director Christophe Darbellay at an alarming press conference in Sion at the end of May.
Majority of the Valais against the wolf
In a letter, the Valais government is now addressing the Federal President Ignazio Cassis directly. Together with his Federal Council colleagues, he should set everything in motion to rush to the mountain canton’s aid without delay. With reference to Article 185, Section 3 of the Constitution, the Federal Council is being asked to create an emergency ordinance so that the Valais can regulate the wolf population themselves during the upcoming summer in the Alps. According to emergency law, the Valais government wants to fight wolves like viruses – as “imminent serious disruptions to public order”.
The emergency law is to apply for six months and goes further than the federal hunting law allows. Among other things, this stipulates that the canton can have a single wolf shot down if it has killed ten livestock. In order to intervene in a pack, not only ten cracks are required, but also the approval of the responsible Federal Office for the Environment (Bafu).
A majority of the Valais population is likely to support the appeal of their State Council. A good 68 percent of the canton voted in favor of the revision of the hunting law, which was also rejected across Switzerland because of the relaxation of wolf protection. The cantonal initiative “For a Valais without large carnivores” had similar approval ratings. In the German-speaking part of the canton, the proposal was even accepted with more than 80 percent – in vain. The initiative text, which also called for more regulatory powers for the cantons, cannot be reconciled with the national hunting law.
With the letter to the Federal Council, the Valais government wants to show once again that no stone is left unturned to somehow get the problem under control. “Suddenly a lot was possible with Corona,” says the responsible State Councilor Frédéric Favre (FDP). Now you have a specific emergency in a certain region. One hopes for understanding from Bern, but has no illusions. To date, the Valais government has not received an answer. The letter is sometimes smiled at in the lobby of the Federal Palace.
Legal experts say that the procedure is not formally wrong, especially since a cantonal government does not have the power to selectively override a federal law. However, it is questionable whether the Valais wolves would be materially rated as “serious disturbances of public order”. The letter to the Federal Council therefore testifies above all to an oppressive impotence.
At the same time, it is a letter of protest and a means of symbolic politics, a further signal and one of the many signs set in a debate that has long since gotten out of hand emotionally. In addition to the emergency law, the Valais Council of State in Bern is also demanding a reduction in bureaucracy in the processes for shooting permits. Two additional game wardens are also on the wish list – financed by the federal government because the wolf is a species that is protected at the federal level.
no more patience
The canton of Valais is once again facing a hot summer in the Alps. The sheep farmers expect the worst. Occasionally, farmers apply for gun licenses. Others have announced that they will collect money as a preventive measure in order to one day finance the legal fees of shepherds who resist. There are breeders who are willing to take a chance. If a private shoots a wolf that threatens or kills his animals in flagrante delicto, can he claim self-defence?
While the nerves in the pastures have long been on edge, the State Council’s environmental commission is trying to keep a cool head. She has launched a parliamentary initiative according to which the wolf can be regulated in the same way as the ibex. Killing of wolves should be permitted where agriculture is endangered due to the high wolf density. Wolves that stand out because they come threateningly close to settlements and people or bypass livestock protection should also be allowed to be killed. This initiative comes close to the Valais government’s emergency law appeal – but it will probably take longer before it is included in the hunting law.
Until then, the shepherds flirt with a kind of “Lex Glättli”. In a recent “Rundschau” program, the Green President justified vigilantism as a legitimate political means. Civil disobedience such as blocking oil deliveries or slashing car tires is part of democracy – as long as no people are harmed. Glättli showed understanding for the actions of climate activists who feel neither understood nor taken into account by politicians. The shepherds in the wolf regions argue similarly. It’s not about the end of the world for them, but their sheep and traditional agriculture are world enough for them.