BERN - A calf in the federal game reserve at Schwarzhorn, near Schattenhalb, was so badly injured in the night before Friday that it had to be put down. The cantonal economy and environment department said on Monday that a gamekeeper reads the wounds as a wolf attack. A DNA sample is meant to confirm that.
The response is deterrence and closer monitoring with camera traps, not a shot. A cull order is already in force in the wider region. It cannot be used here. Federal law forbids shooting wolves inside a federal game reserve, and Schwarzhorn is one.
What herdsmen can and cannot expect
That split is the whole policy argument in one pasture. Outside the reserve, the canton has authority it can use if the tests and the existing order line up. Inside the line on the map, the tools are noise, presence and cameras. Farmers who graze up to that line will hear the distinction as a legal technicality. The department is applying it anyway, because the statute does not bend for one calf.
Waiting on the laboratory
Until the DNA result, the wolf is the gamekeeper's conclusion, not a finished identification. Monday's announcement still changes the week for the herds on that slope: more checks, and no expectation that a marksman will settle it inside the reserve.