Foxes: the legal battle continues... Stop this carnage!
Have foxes in Nièvre been killed completely illegally? The tribunal responded positively to this question. These animals have been the target of relentless persecution: classified as a ‘species likely to cause damage’ in numerous departments, hunted down all year long by hunters, they are the subject of official hunts organised by prefects almost everywhere in France. In summer 2022, several operations of this kind were organised in this department. We are demanding justice for all of the lives stolen.
In Nièvre, hundreds of animals are targeted: a shameful decision
As if there were not sufficient ways of massacring foxes – from digging out to killing them as part of the scandalous classification of them as a ‘species likely to cause damage’ – the Nièvre Prefect felt it necessary to authorise eight official hunts at the end of summer 2022 for a duration of two months across land in 20 towns. We legally challenged these decrees that had the sole aim of satisfying hunters’ demands at a low cost. In fact, behind the stated objective of protecting plant and animal life, these authorisations to kill were in fact aimed at “protecting” pheasants and partridges… bought from breeding farms and released to be killed a few days later!
Outside of this department, each year in France, hundreds of thousands of animals are slaughtered in the name of the ‘damage’ that they will cause or due to the risk that they represent. But you only need to dig a little deeper to realise that these motives are each more fake than the next. The most recent example to date is in Melles, where dozens of goats had to be killed because of a few scratches on cars, and where we have had the decree suspended.
Lives stolen by illegal prefectural decisions
This decision, obtained by our plea and by AVES France and Loire Vivante Nièvre-Allier-Cher who have attacked independently, will not give hundreds of animals who have been massacred after hours of being hunted down their lives back and will not rebuild families decimated for the pleasure of a small number of those who follow archaic practices. But it creates an initial breakthrough in the scandal of official hunts, which allow tens of thousands of animals systematically accused of all evils to be killed each year!
In Dijon, the tribunal will not let themselves be fooled: it batted away all of the prefect’s justifications, specifically recalling that in no way did this regime aim to protect the practice of pheasant hunting… In other words, the judge reminded us that wildlife does not belong to hunters and that they do not have any right over the lives and deaths of animals as they see fit.
To give a voice to all of these animals mercilessly killed, we need you more than ever: sign our petition for a radical reform of hunting, and support us in our fight for foxes!
Translated from the French by Joely Justice