Foxes: in the Hautes-Pyrénées region, slaughter them at all costs. Petition for suspension filed
In the middle of summer, the Hautes-Pyrénées prefect has just authorized administrative fox drive hunts, from August 6 to 31, 2024, in the villages of Peyrouse and Saint-Pé-de-Bigorre. Doubtless to satisfy the hunters and give them the opportunity to kill when the hunt is closed… Against the foxes, it’s a never-ending harassment. Here, the prefect expressly authorizes hunters to slaughter them in any way they wish. We’re attacking this decree to save as many as possible! Hearing on August 19, 2024 at the Administrative Court of Pau.
Carnage in progress in the Hautes-Pyrénées region
Now that the hunt is closed and the animals should be able to enjoy a few weeks’ respite before hunters return to the forests with their four-wheel drive vehicles and guns, foxes are once again being targeted, this time in the Hautes-Pyrénées region. Accusing them, as always, of causing damage, the prefect has just authorized an administrative drive hunt in Peyrouse and Saint-Pé-de-Bigorre from August 6 to 31.
This time, however, the representative of the State is taking a more aggressive stance than ever against these animals. “All methods” may be used, including ‘those traditionally prohibited for hunting’. It’s enough to make you shudder, when you know how imaginative hunters are when it comes to killing animals by the most cruel methods, from digging them up to trapping them in all kinds of ways.
The law? A detail when it comes to harassing foxes
Every year, hundreds of thousands of foxes are killed in France. And the few rules that the law imposes on prefects to authorize administrative drive hunts are regularly trampled underfoot. Here, the prefect is content to invoke “the damage caused in private barnyards”. Protecting these areas with fences is undoubtedly far too complicated!
And the senior civil servant goes even further: he entrusts lieutenants de louveterie and pests with the task of initiating beats “if they consider that the declared damage justifies it”. Or when the State once again abandons its mission and decides no more and no less than to entrust it to the hunters themselves…
We’ll be taking the voice of these foxes to the Administrative Court in Pau on August 19, 2024 at 9:00 am. In the meantime, support them by signing our petitions for the removal of foxes from the list of “species likely to cause damage” and for the eleven points of radical hunting reform we are calling for.
Victory for the foxes! In a decision handed down today, the administrative court in Pau has suspended the decree authorizing administrative fox drive hunts in the Hautes-Pyrénées region. The decision vindicates our position and confirms that there is no evidence of damage. Against these actions, which constitute a real scandal and lead to the massacre of tens of thousands of animals every year, we will continue the fight wherever we can!