The Nancy criminal court on Wednesday sentenced the Approved Municipal Hunting Association (ACCA) of Xirocourt (Meurthe-et-Moselle) to a fine of 2,000 euros for having thrown game carcasses into a watercourse between December 2022 and January 2023. The president of the ACCA, Denis Rapenne, also prosecuted for
“abandonment or illegal deposit of waste by their producer or holder”
and
“throwing or abandonment of
waste in significant quantities in waters”
, was acquitted .
A half-hearted decision that
“does not suit him at all
,” the man who has headed the Xirocourt ACCA since 1985 told AFP.
The hunter thus indicated his intention to appeal on behalf of the ACCA:
“Even if I am personally acquitted, the association is condemned.
Some of the association's hunters can't digest being accused of something we didn't do
,” declared Denis Rapenne.
At the hearing on January 19, the Nancy public prosecutor's office requested a 1,000 euro fine against Denis Rapenne and the ACCA.
Accusations of former association hunters
The 67-year-old man insists that his association is wrongly accused:
“It's so easy, we discover it not far from the hunting hut, it's obviously the hunters from Xirocourt... But that doesn't correspond to what we do: when we kill something, we leave with the entire game in its skin and we take care of it at home
.
The alert was given by agents of the National Forestry Office (ONF) who had discovered, near the hunting shelter, ten wild boar skins with their heads as well as two deer skins in the course of water and surrounding forest areas.
All eyes were turned towards the Xirocourt ACCA after accusations were made against its president by former hunters of the association assuring investigators that illegal dumping of carcasses near the shelter and in the stream was commonplace.
“There are plenty of people who get rid of their waste at night, between animal corpses, tires, glass wool... and no one is worried
,” observed Denis Rapenne.
Open to all, walkers and hunters alike, the hunting cabin has been
“under video surveillance for two or three months”
, according to Denis Rapenne.
“Now that there are cameras, we are no longer bothered, but I find carcasses elsewhere, two or three kilometers further
,” says the hunter.