Why Your Forest Walk Changes On 1 April

In most of Switzerland there is a date in spring when the same walk you did yesterday becomes an offence, and nothing about the forest looks any different.

No sign goes up on the path. The rule is cantonal, it is published in a hunting ordinance rather than anywhere a dog owner would think to look, and the first many people hear of it is a game warden explaining it to them.

The window, and why it exists

The period is called the Brut- und Setzzeit — nesting and fawning season. Across a large number of cantons it runs from 1 April to 31 July, and during it dogs must be on the lead in woodland.

What is actually being protected is specific: pregnant roe deer and newly dropped fawns, young hares, fox and badger cubs, and ground-nesting birds sitting on clutches. A fawn's entire survival strategy for its first weeks is to lie flat and not move. It will not run from your dog. It will hold position while your dog investigates it, and then the doe may abandon it.

Fifty metres is the part people miss

Here is the detail that catches even careful owners, using Lucerne as the worked example — its rule is written into the cantonal hunting ordinance and has been since 2014.

In Lucerne the leash obligation applies in the forest and anywhere within 50 metres of the forest edge. Not in the forest. Within fifty metres of it.

That converts a lot of ordinary field walking into leash territory. The strip of meadow you cross to reach the trail, the path that runs along the treeline, the shortcut across the corner of a pasture — all of it can sit inside the buffer, and none of it feels like "the woods."

What it costs, and the second, stricter layer

In Lucerne, ignoring the seasonal rule is an Ordnungsbusse of CHF 100.

Separately, and all year round, the leash duty applies in nature reserves, in the federal game reserve at Tannhorn, and in the Wauwilermoos water and migratory bird reserve of national importance. Breaching it there costs CHF 150, and since 1 January 2020 revised federal law allows that to be handled through the standard fixed-penalty procedure.

Those are two different obligations that people routinely merge into one. The seasonal one switches off on 1 August. The protected-area one does not switch off at all.

Who is exempt

Lucerne's ordinance exempts hunting dogs, livestock-guardian dogs, and police and rescue-service dogs while working or in training.

That list is worth reading closely, because of what is not on it. "My dog has excellent recall" is not an exemption. It is also, specifically, not an answer to the problem — the damage a dog does in the Setzzeit is done by the pursuit, not by the catch. A deer that runs from a dog it could easily outpace is a deer burning reserves it needs, in the weeks it can least afford to. The chase is the harm.

I would go further: the recall argument is usually made by people whose dogs recall reliably from other dogs and from people, which is a different skill from recalling off the scent of a fawn twenty metres into cover.

Finding your own canton's rule

Because this is cantonal, the only correct answer to "when does it start where I live" is: look it up in your canton, not in a blog.

Start with the cantonal office for hunting, wildlife or forestry — the rule usually sits in the Jagdverordnung, not the animal-welfare or dog legislation, which is why it is easy to miss.
Check whether your canton includes a forest-edge buffer, and what distance. This varies and it changes the practical map of your walks more than the dates do.
Check the dates. The 1 April to 31 July window is common but not universal, and at least one canton is reported to run a year-round forest leash rule.
Look for a map. Lucerne publishes an interactive leash map, and several cantons do something similar — far more useful than a paragraph of text when you are trying to work out whether one particular path counts.
Check separately for nature reserves and game reserves on your usual routes, since those obligations run all year and carry the higher fine.

Communes can also publish their own reminders and their own additional rules, so a municipal notice is worth reading rather than assuming it merely restates the canton.

The part that has nothing to do with fines

Four months on a lead in the woods is a real loss for a dog who normally ranges, and it is worth replacing rather than simply removing. A long line on a harness in open country away from the treeline, scent games, and hard mental work will empty a dog more thoroughly than a loose run through the trees anyway.

The season ends on 31 July in most places. The fawns that survive it are the ones nobody's dog found in June.