• The prefecture of Oise has issued an order authorizing the slaughter of 1,700 foxes.

  • Several associations attacked this decree before the administrative court of Amiens.

  • The decision to suspend or maintain the order must be made at the end of the week.

Foxes on borrowed time. Regularly, the prefecture of Oise takes orders to authorize the regulation of species deemed harmful and, in this department, this is still the case for the fox. The last decree on this subject was published on September 13 and puts forward a figure of 1,700 foxes that can be slaughtered by the end of February 2022, or nearly 12 animals per day. The One voice and Aves France associations attacked the prefectural decree before the Amiens court.

We do not know exactly what is the population of foxes in the department of Oise, the only official data coming from counts carried out by the lieutenants of the weaver, these same lieutenants who ask the prefect for authorization to "take" the foxes.

The kilometric index of abundance has, according to the authorities, gone from 0.5 to 0.6 foxes per kilometer, or nearly 9,800 individuals for the entire department.

In her draft decree, last July, the prefect of Oise had also planned to authorize the slaughter of 3,000 foxes.

A figure which has almost divided by two without anyone knowing why in the decree attacked on Monday by One voice and Aves.

Harmful on the one hand, ecological role on the other

Nevertheless, to justify the slaughter of 1,700 foxes by the end of February 2022, the prefecture of Oise evokes a development of this animal "during the periods of confinement of the year 2020", damage having generated " 39,239.59 euros ”of damage on a hundred municipalities and the fact that it is a“ predator in henhouses as well as for a large part of small game ”. Arguments that do not hold for associations which consider, on the contrary, that the fox has "an invaluable ecological role".

At the hearing before the administrative court of Amiens, Monday, One voice hammered out that the figure of 1,700 animals to be slaughtered "remains monstrously staggering and unjustifiable".

A postulate to which the more than 40,000 signatories of the petition have adhered to request the suspension of the prefectural decree.

The decision is due at the end of the week.

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