Foxes, rooks, crows: endless persecution in Nièvre and Jura

The news is very gloomy for ‘species likely to cause damage’. The release of the ministerial decree of 3 August 2023 approved an extension of the right to unlimited killing of foxes, weasels, martens, stone martens, Eurasian jays, Eurasian magpies, common starlings, black crows, and rooks. We have attacked this shameful list while hoping that the State Council will rule in favour of these animals that are still wrongly considered by some as ‘pests’. And, as the persecution against these unloved animals has no limit, Prefects do not hesitate to go further by ordering administrative hunts, which authorise the killing of these animals all year round, wherever and whenever! Examples of this are in Nièvre and Jura.

In Nièvre, killing foxes... to maintain a monopoly on the massacre of farmed pheasants and partridges!

In this department, foxes are used as targets by the Prefect. In the summer of 2022, he passed several decrees authorising administrative hunts in 22 towns for a duration of two months, including the use of night shooting. A true nightmare for these animals who are already hunted with guns and dug out of their burrows as part of the sadistic practice that is underground hunting with hounds.

The reason for these killings? To ensure that the foxes do not touch the pheasants and partridges released by hunters who aim to kill them later! Hunters want to eliminate all competition, and especially that of other animals... And it doesn't matter that foxes are crop aids and also help to limit the spread of Lyme disease, and that they are fully capable of regulating their own population by themselves. Yet more proof of the total absurdity of these methods that only aim to protect the interests of an all too powerful lobby.

In Jura, the Tribunal proved us right, but the Prefect persists and has appealed!

In Jura, on 23 June, the Tribunal cancelled a decision authorising a large-scale administrative hunt on black crows and rooks. Hardly any consolation for the hundreds of birds killed completely illegally. But the administration resolutely does not want them to have any respite. For a few days, we have known that the Prefect has decided to contest this decision.

This stubbornness has one objective: to allow decrees to be passed authorising animals to be hunted without even having to organise a public consultation! In short, organising methodical killing without anyone being able to voice their opposition. The Prefect can count on us to defend them all with all we have in front of the administrative court of appeal.

At this stage, it is no longer even about the hunts, but quite simply about the persecution of these species that are accused of all evils. We will not let ourselves be deterred by the Prefectures’ and hunters’ untruthful arguments, who still believe that yet more of these animals should be killed.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice