Hunts at the authorities' initiative conducted in secret: a worrying trend
In the regions of Lot and Aveyron, hundreds of animals have been killed illegally… and how many more elsewhere in France? In these regions, hunts at the authorities’ initiative have been authorised without any official order being published, nor any public debate being organised. This has clearly been one of the prefectures’ strategies to prevent us from intervening. In the Lot region, no fewer than 33 roe deer and 103 badgers have reportedly been slaughtered in complete secrecy. We demand transparency and an end to the shooting!
After Loire-Atlantique, Lot and Aveyron: how many hunts have been organised in secret?
Last 7 November, in the minutes from a meeting published by the Lot Prefecture, we learned by chance that 125 wild boars, 33 roe deer and 103 badgers had already been killed in 2025 as part of hunts at the authorities’ initiative. The problem is that we have found no trace of the orders authorising these operations.
In Aveyron, according to the hunting federation, the administration has “issued a “historic” number of authorisations this year for the destruction of badgers, either by shooting or trapping” to “compensate for the absence of an additional period” of unearthing following our victories. Again, there is no trace of these authorisations.
How many municipalities –such as Frossay– or regions are currently the objects of such discreet interventions? Sometimes the orders are published… but only after the fact, when the animals are already dead. These practices –which we have denounced all the way to the Council of State– have a single objective: to prevent us from taking legal action to save lives.
For transparency… and an end to culling
All these operations represent genuine parallel hunting seasons conducted by officially appointed huntmasters accompanied by shooters of their choice, and they are regularly annulled by the courts when we challenge them. The justifications are implausible, as in the Nièvre region where the prefecture wanted to have foxes slaughtered on the grounds that they were accused of attacking pheasants bought from farms and released in view of being killed a few days later!
Today, we demand transparency. And even if these orders were correctly published, we would still reject the very principle of these actions which institutionalise the systematic slaughter of wildlife.
In the region of Loire-Atlantique, following our request, the prefecture has committed to publishing all orders. We will make sure of it. And we are writing to the prefects of Lot and Aveyron to ask them to do the same, so that we may intervene wherever we can to save animals!