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Geneva

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Cantonal system

Permits

No licence: regulation belongs to the environment wardens

The canton issues no hunting licence. Any necessary culling is carried out by its own environment wardens.

Since hunting is banned, Geneva issues no licence, no permit and no hunting authorisation. The question “how do I get the licence” has no answer in this canton, and that is the answer. Wildlife management has not disappeared for all that. The canton's environment wardens carry out a substantial part of it, including professional regulation shooting where it is needed. Those official measures are exactly what article 162 of the constitution reserves. The canton relies on article 17 of the federal hunting act (LChP, RS 922.0), and a 2002 ruling of the Geneva police court treated the cantonal territory as a protected area within the meaning of that act.

Safety

What the ban does not excuse you from knowing

No hunting does not mean no wildlife: the canton documents living alongside wild animals rather than taking them.

The ban does not make the game disappear, and Geneva devotes most of its communication to living alongside wildlife rather than taking it. Wild boar, red deer and small carnivores live here, with the friction that implies in a peri-urban setting. For a hunter the practical consequence is simple and absolute: carrying a hunting firearm in action on Geneva territory has no legal basis. There is no zone, season or species on which a private exception opens. Management measures — on the red deer of the Versoix woods, for instance — are carried out and documented by the canton itself, which publishes its legal bases and directives for nature management.

Regulations

Geneva: hunting is banned by the constitution

Article 162 of the Geneva constitution prohibits hunting mammals and birds; only official wildlife regulation measures are reserved.

Geneva is the only Swiss canton where hunting is banned by the constitution. Article 162 of the constitution of the Republic and Canton of Geneva, headed “Hunting”, runs to two sentences: “Hunting mammals and birds is prohibited. Official wildlife regulation measures are reserved.” The ban dates from 1974: following a popular initiative launched by animal protection groups, the Geneva electorate voted to prohibit hunting across the whole cantonal territory. It was later carried into the constitution. There is therefore no hunting licence, no permit and no open season in Geneva. A hunter arriving from another canton has no hunting right to assert here.

Other Swiss cantons

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Appenzell Ausserrhoden

Bern

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Basel-City

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Graubünden

Jura

Lucerne

Neuchâtel

Nidwalden

Obwalden

St. Gallen

Schaffhausen

Solothurn

Schwyz

Thurgau

Ticino

Uri

Vaud

Valais

Zug

Zurich

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