Bern: licence hunting and per-species planning
The canton exercises its regale by issuing personal authorisations; planning sets annual quotas for each species.
The Bernese act on hunting and wildlife protection (Gesetz über Jagd und Wildtierschutz, JWG, BSG 922.11) of 25 March 2002 implements and supplements federal law. Among its aims it explicitly names promoting an attractive, ethically conducted licence hunt with strong individual responsibility on the hunters' part. Article 4 states the regime plainly: the canton exercises its hunting regale by issuing personal hunting authorisations — the Patentjagd. The territory is not leased; the right to hunt attaches to the person and to the licence they have bought. Article 3 adds the other Bernese pillar, planning. It sets, for each species, the population sizes to be reached in the medium term and the annual hunting quotas; where populations run too high or too low, quotas are differentiated by region. Three further texts complete the act: the hunting ordinance (JaV, BSG 922.111) and the wildlife protection ordinance (WTSchV, BSG 922.63), both of 26 February 2003, and the directorate ordinance on hunting (BSG 922.111.1) of 27 March 2003.