Val d'Oise: fox massacre in 75 villages, we go to court
The lieutenants of louveterie and pests in Val-d’Oise can rub their hands: at the end of April, the prefect authorized them to kill an unlimited number of foxes in almost 75 villages. The reasons given? To protect pheasants and gray partridges… bred in captivity to die under hunter fire. To add insult to injury, the decree was published several days after it came into force, which is of course forbidden! Even if this won’t bring the killed foxes back to life, we are attacking this decree and denouncing this intolerable scheme.
A relentless assault on foxes everywhere
To please the hunters, in the Val-d’Oise department, the hunting season is longer for foxes than for other species: from June to February, that’s nine months instead of six! Then there are traps of all kinds, veritable torture tools authorized under the Ministry of Ecology’s “ESOD” classification, which we have challenged at the Conseil d’État. And underground hunting, which lasts several hours and leaves cornered animals no chance.
A scheme to circumvent the law and allow the killing of red foxes
As if that weren’t enough, the prefect ordered the lieutenants of louveterie and pests – a kind of chief hunter under the authority of the State – to shoot an unlimited number of foxes at night in 75 villages of the department for almost three weeks. A hecatomb when the fox cubs have just been born. And to ensure that no one could take the matter to court in time, the State representative took care to sign his decree on April 29 and publish it on the 30th, for operations starting… on the 24th!
A scheme to replace foxes and hunt pheasants and partridges.
How can such massacres be justified? If pheasants and partridges are endangered, then they should be protected from hunters! A few months ago, judges in Dijon dismissed these fallacious arguments out of hand, and annulled beats ordered in the Nièvre department. Today, we are taking these three decisions, whose illegality is beyond doubt, to the administrative court in Cergy-Pontoise.
To speak up for the foxes, sign our petitions against the relentlessness of which they are victims, and for a radical reform of hunting!