The administrative court of Rouen, seized by three associations for the defense of animals, annulled a decree of the prefect of Eure of 2019 authorizing the night slaughter of foxes in the department.
Read also: Eure: a decree authorizing the regulation of suspended foxes
In its judgment rendered Friday, September 18, the court followed the opinion of the public rapporteur who had requested on September 4 the annulment of this decree, already suspended in summary proceedings in 2019. This decree authorized the elimination of night foxes without giving encrypted limit.
In his decree, the prefect of Eure had highlighted the decrease in the partridge population and the damage caused to poultry farms.
Citing a study by the federation of hunters of the Eure, the court considered that "
the cause of the disappearances results in part only from predation
".
Another document, a departmental hunting management plan (concerning hunting) produced by the requesting associations, shows that “
the disappearance of this species is essentially due to monoculture, the expansion of plots, agricultural machinery and the destruction of fixed elements of the landscape
”.
"
It does not appear from the file that the fox would represent a threat justifying the use of destruction measures provided for by the decree
", concludes the court.
Regarding poultry farms, "
the documents provided by the prefect do not allow to establish that foxes could be the source of significant damage to the farm
".
The court was seized of a request from the Association for the protection of wild animals (Aspas), The One voice Association and the Norman mammological group (GMN).
On September 4, the administrative court of Rouen suspended an order from the prefect of Seine-Maritime authorizing the slaughter of 1,430 foxes by 2021.
