Historic victory for ESOD! 27 declassifications mean thousands of animals saved
“ESOD”. Behind these four letters lies a cruel and violent reality: 18 species declared undesirable and hundreds of thousands of animals slaughtered every year. In 2023, the State drew up the macabre list of nine Group II species, targeted department by department: foxes, martens, stone martens, weasels, Eurasian jays, Eurasian magpies, European starlings, carrion crows and rooks… Almost 500 classifications, based on archaic, outdated criteria. Today, the Council of State has partly ruled in our favour with a historic decision: it has removed martens from this list of shame throughout France, and pronounced 26 removals in the departments!
26 classifications judged illegal and martens removed from the list throughout France
For these harassed animals, life is nothing but a struggle to escape shots and traps. In addition to hunting and administrative hunts, they can be massacred by landowners almost all year round. And when the bullets aren’t flying, there are the traps that maim and kill, the cages that close before a trapper finishes the job with a gun, knife or hand. ESODs are not the only victims, like Cooper, Red Collar or Tigrou, and all the pets that are injured, sometimes fatally.
As soon as it was published, we challenged the decree that issued almost 500 classifications throughout France. Today, the Council of State has confirmed that dozens of them were illegal. From now until June 30, 2026, in these departments, animals of these species will no longer have to endure this constant harassment. For martens, the victory is total: their very presence on the list, throughout France, has been called into question.
ESOD: an obsolete murderous “logic” in the hot seat
For years, we and our partner associations have been denouncing the unfounded and absurd nature of the criteria used to draw up this list. No animal is inherently evil, and no species deserves to be harassed. It’s high time we abandoned these outdated reflexes and realized just how much these animals contribute to our lives, like the foxes that feed on brown rats and slow the spread of diseases such as Lyme disease. And because animals simply have the right to live for themselves.
With this decision, the Council of State has condemned this murderous logic. Criticized by certain government departments themselves, the ESOD regime is now hanging by a thread. More than ever, we will keep up the pressure to ensure that it is definitively called into question, by continuing to demand a radical reform of hunting! And we’ll keep up the fight for all animals still on the list.
Species removed from the ESOD list by the Council of State :
- Martens: throughout France;
- Stone martens: Aveyron, Morbihan and Territoire de Belfort;
- Foxes: Aveyron, Haute-Loire and Lozère outside areas where they are likely to cause damage;
- Rooks: Nord and Pas-de-Calais;
- Carrion crows: Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Hautes-Alpes, Aveyron, Bouches-du-Rhône, Haute-Loire and Vaucluse;
- Eurasian magpies: Ariège, Charente, Haute-Garonne, Gers, Maine-et-Loire, Somme and Essonne;
- European starlings: Corrèze, Meurthe-et-Moselle and Meuse;
- Eurasian jays: Corrèze and Lot-et-Garonne.