Photo: ©2009 WWF/Klein Hubet
BERN, SWITZERLAND – WWF Switzerland is counting two environmental battles won this week. Its fight to see Valais respect the Bern International Treaty that covers the protection of wolves, an endangered species, resulted in a decision by the Sion district tribunal 13 December to condemn former cantonal councilor Jean-René Fournier to 60 days community service, with the sentence suspended.
Fournier is no longer in the cantonal government but represents Valais in the upper house of the Swiss parliament.
Valais should start adding shepherds, dogs to sheep herds, says WWF
The decision relates to the 2006 death of a wolf that had killed 30 sheep in Valais. Fournier approved the permit to shoot the animal and after its death he stuffed it and had it on display in his office, despite the international ban to which Switzerland is party.
No more wolf: what a relief!
Sion, Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Canton Valais angered WWF and other groups in late summer 2009 by authorizing the shooting of three wolves but in the end one of them will not be killed. The wolf in question, which had attacked sheep and, later, goats, in the Val de Dix, has not been seen in the area recently, say cantonal authorities, who say they would know if the female wolf was around, thanks to close surveillance. The shoot-to-kill order is valid only for 60 days, and the period has now ended.
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Title: Sheep come back from the Alps
Location: Champery, Valais
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Description: Sheep come down from the summer alpine pastures
Start Time: 11:30
Date: 10 Oct 2009
Title: Sheep, pigs, cows and more farm animals will parade through Bern’s main streets.
Location: Bern
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Description: Games, tasty farmhouse fare, and a parade of Swiss cows, sheep, pigs, and goats all in a day’s work in the Swiss capital of Bern.
Date: 14 Sep 2009
Wolves (image: © Klein & Hubert/WWF)
Sion, Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A wolf was shot in the Val d’Illiez, canton Valais early Thursday 20 August, just a day after WWF Switzerland and Pro Natura announced they are making a legal appeal against canton Valais’s July decision to allow two wolves to be shot and a decision by Lucerne to shoot one. “We will go ahead with our appeal in the hope that, thanks to a future decision by the tribunal the wolves will be better protected in the future,” says Kurt Eichenberger, head of biodiversity for WWF Switzerland.
WWF Switzerland says the canton’s procedures for making the decision to kill is flawed.
Valais sheep, photo E Wallace
Leukerbad, Valais (GenevaLunch) – The Gemmi pass, linking cantons Bern and Valais, is normally a relatively isolated high mountain area dotted with occasional sheep and hikers trekking across. Sunday 26 July the crowds flocked to see the annual shepherds’ festival: some 2,500 people to watch 800 sheep race down from the higher alps for their midsummer nutritional snack, Glaeck.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in Geneva Thursday morning rounded up 26 Romanians who were begging in the streets, public radio RSR reports, in a sweep of the city that involved four police vans and 30 officers. The move was linked to the upcoming federal vote, 8 February, on extending the free movement of people to Romania and Bulgaria, in an effort to reduce a popular negative perception of traveling people, notably Roms, and some other groups from these countries. Also Thursday, the Federal Council in Bern issued an unusually strong statement against racist overtones in political advertising for the 8 February vote.
