As of: February 8, 2024, 2:38 p.m
By: Julian Mayr
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The Fox Weeks in February are an occasion for heated debates every year.
While hunters emphasize the importance of fox hunting, animal rights activists are calling for it to be banned.
Bremen – For some people, hunting is a beloved hobby, for others it is a necessary evil to keep the population of a species in check.
Others, however, see little point in hunting certain wild animals.
Not only the shooting of protected species, such as the wolf, but also fox hunting is controversial in Germany.
Especially in February, many foxes are shot in Germany as part of the so-called Fox Weeks.
But why actually?
Fox hunting in Germany to regulate the population
More than 400,000 foxes were shot in Germany in the last hunting season alone.
In February, hunters even join together to hunt foxes across different areas.
Hundreds of foxes lying on tree branches on the ground.
Some of them show evidence of gunshot wounds, while others were caught in traps.
It is images like these, taken during the so-called Fox Weeks, that animal rights activists take to the scene every year to call for bans on the hunting of foxes.
During the fox weeks in February, a particularly large number of foxes are hunted.
© Ralf Rottmann/IMAGO
For the German Hunting Association (DJV), however, there are good reasons why the fox population must be decimated through hunting.
Foxes would multiply rapidly due to a lack of natural predators or diseases, such as rabies, which has now been successfully combated.
There is therefore a fundamental need to regulate the population of foxes per se.
Animal rights activists and animal protection associations, on the other hand, argue that increased hunting would simply lead to more animals immigrating from neighboring areas.
Hunting also destroys foxes’ stable social structures, meaning they “hardly have any fixed territories with consistent pair bonds,” writes the animal protection organization Peta.
This leads to uncontrolled reproduction and an increase in the birth rate.
Foxes as sources of disease and health police
According to the DJV, a population density that is too high is particularly problematic with regard to the transmission of certain diseases, especially mange and distemper.
In the case of mange, it is a parasitic skin disease that is transmitted through physical contact with foxes or via their breeding grounds.
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“If the number of possible hosts per area increases, the risk of infection also increases and the disease can spread quickly,” writes the DJV.
For scientists, an increased incidence of mange is an indication that the density of foxes and other smaller forest predators, such as badgers, is too high.
How many foxes are there in Germany?
According to hunting statistics from the German Hunting Association, a total of 408,926 foxes were shot in Germany in the 2022/23 hunting season.
However, no precise information can be given about the actual population, according to the German Wildlife Foundation.
According to estimates by wildlife expert Sophia Kimmig, up to 15,000 of the animals that can adapt well to urban life could live in the federal capital Berlin alone.
Source: DJV/German Wildlife Foundation
Peta counters that the foxes act more as health police and can stop the spread of diseases.
“Foxes ensure the survival of their prey species by preying on weak and sick animals and thus immediately eliminating sources of disease,” say animal rights activists.
Is hunting foxes important for species conservation?
The German Hunting Association also sees fox hunting as a contribution to species protection.
Predatory mammals such as foxes in large numbers would make life difficult for threatened bird and reptile species in their ever-shrinking refuges.
“If we manage to reduce the predation pressure on threatened meadow birds, then there will actually be more of them again,” says Marcus Henke from the Bremen State Hunting Association in a DJV video.
Animal rights activists, on the other hand, believe that the reason for the shrinking population of endangered species lies more in the loss of habitat and dwindling food supply.
The hunting community certainly recognizes that “intensive, modern land use is a major cause of the loss of species”.
Even in protected areas, however, according to the DJV, “rare meadow breeders are at high risk from predators.”
According to animal rights activists, Fox Weeks do not comply with animal welfare standards
Hunters and animal rights activists each rely on scientific studies and literature in their arguments.
Regardless of the discussed benefits of fox hunting and especially the intensified hunting in February, animal protection organizations specifically consider the practice of fox weeks to be non-compliant with animal welfare.
This is appropriate for pasture, i.e. in accordance with the ethical code of the hunters.
During the Fox Weeks, hunters without local knowledge would go after foxes, and in February most vixens would already be pregnant and would therefore often be targeted by hunters, writes the German Wildlife Protection Association.
In addition, many foxes are not killed, but rather seriously injured.
Animal rights activists particularly criticize den hunting with the help of dogs and manslaughter traps.
At least no live puppies are in danger of being killed during the fox weeks.
As biologist Saskia Schneider shows in the magazine
PetBook
, the mating season for foxes usually occurs during the fox weeks.
Most fox pups would not be born until March and April.
Fox cubs do not always lose their parents due to hunting.
In the case of a fox pup whose mother died in a car accident, a female dog quickly took over the task of raising the baby fox.