Select a Location
Switzerland at a glance
There are thought to be approximately 30-35 wolves in Switzerland, with a well-established pack in the Calanda region that has been producing pups each year. Wolves have been sighted in 17 of Switzerland’s 26 cantons.
This website, theculturetrip.com, provides this summary of wolves in Switzerland:
“Just over 100 years ago the last wolf in Switzerland was killed after an extensive, and mercilessly successful, campaign to eradicate them across Central Europe. This campaign was based on a common belief that the wolf is a bloodthirsty killer that poses a threat to man and their livestock. Between the 1930s and 1960s, the population in the Alpsshrunk to its lowestpoint where only a few isolated populations survived.
“Under the protection of the law, which marks the wolf as a protected species and allows them to be killed only with permission of the state, the wolf has been able to gain ground and establish a presence. More wolves began to return over the following years and the first pack in over a century and a half wasrecorded in 2012near Chur. Asecond pack was recordedin Ticino three years later. Today there are said to be between 30-35 wolves in Switzerland.”
Species Information
Species
Common Name: gray wolf
Latin Name: Canis lupus
Subspecies
Common Name:
Latin Name: Canis lupus lupus
Current Wolf Population, Trend, Status
Number of wolves: 60 to 70
Population trend: Growing
Legal protection: Under federal protection, unless an animal kills over 20 sheep in a single month, or if it loses its fear of humans. Because of depredations on livestock, wolves are illegally killed.
This page was last updated in 2020.
More Information
Press coverage and other links
- The return of the wolf: A Swiss identity crisis
- New wolves seen in Switzerland
- Sheep-killing wolf handed death sentence
- Dead wolf in Fribourg may be victim of serial animal killer
Research
- Long-distance wolf recolonization of France and Switzerland inferred from non-invasive genetic sampling over a period of 10 years
- Switzerland pioneers in the use of social livestock guard dogs
- A wolf habitat suitability prediction study in Valais, Switzerland
- Novel socio-ecological approach helps identifying suitable wolf habitats in human dominated landscape of Switzerland
Recent media coverage
