- Since 1988 and the first constitution of the list of harmful species in France, the fox has this label which sticks to its skin. Far from being a gift. As such, it can be hunted for more than ten months out of twelve, trapped throughout the year, or even be unearthed.
- How many are slaughtered each year in France? It is unclear. At least 600,000, say wildlife protection associations. A relentlessness which no longer has anything justified, they claim.
- On the contrary, several voices are raised to take into consideration the services that canine can provide. In agriculture, but also in the fight against certain diseases.
The question is whether to validate the prefectural order allowing the removal [in other words the slaughter] of 1,430 red foxes between mid-July and December in Seine-Maritime, and authorizing 304 operations of night shots, when we are most likely to come across a fox. On its website, the prefecture allows until Friday to issue your opinions, which will then be the subject of an online summary.
The Aves, association for the protection of wild fauna, invites you to do so. "Since 2012, any authority that wants to make a decision that has an impact on the environment must put it to public consultation," said Christopher Coret, its president. This is the case with occasional fox killings, and even more so when it comes to shooting at night, a practice that is normally prohibited. "
But Christopher Coret, like Marc Giraud, spokesperson for the Association for the Protection of Wild Animals (Aspas), prefers to warn. The opinions issued will weigh little in the balance, even if they are mainly against. “Very often, the order is adopted without a comma being changed, regrets the first. This was already the case in February, in Seine-Maritime, on a similar decree. "The prefects take much more the advice of the departmental commissions for the management of wild fauna, where hunters are largely dominant", adds the second.
"Harmful", a label that sticks to his skin
The rest is more or less known. The two associations will take legal action against the order. “We sometimes win, says Christopher Coret, but when the case is not processed urgently, the court decision often falls once the foxes are already slaughtered. Above all, nothing changes for the fox and the perception that we have in France. The animal does not manage to get rid of this label of "harmful". Or "species likely to cause damage", as it should be said today. This list, revised every three years by the State, groups together the species which can harm habitats as well as wild fauna and flora, which cause significant losses in crops, livestock and fisheries, or which endangered animal and / or human health.
As such, the goupil can be hunted for more than ten months out of twelve, trapped all year round, or even be dug up with the help of earthmoving tools and dogs, a practice recently denounced by the NGO One Voice in a video. How many are slaughtered each year in France? It is unclear. "At least 600,000 and up to a million," says Marc Giraud. "Between 150,000 and 200,000," says Willy Schraen, president of the National Federation of Hunters. Be that as it may, "at the national level, the fox is the most abundantly sampled carnivorous species, with about 0.9 foxes sampled per km² and per year for the past twenty years," it says. the French Office for Biodiversity. While stating that, despite everything, its populations have not experienced a significant decrease (or increase) in the past two decades.
The health reason "no longer holds"
This is nonetheless a relentlessness, plagues Marc Giraud, "that nothing more justifies today". Especially in terms of health. "From the 1960s, the fox was massively killed because it carried rabies," he begins. But France was declared free from this disease in 2001, according to the Institut Pasteur. There remains alveolar echonococcosis, a serious disease carried by a parasite which attacks the liver and which the fox can transmit through its excrement. If it is better detected today, the treatments remain heavy and often for life. "However, humans can become infected with foxes like dogs, or by eating contaminated berries," says the OFB. It is quite clear that destroying foxes does not reduce the risk of contamination. "
In some cases even, the strong appetite of the fox for rodents could prove to be a precious help to fight against the infections conveyed by the ticks, such as the Lyme disease transmitted by the bacteria Borrélia. In any case, this is the conclusion reached by a study published on July 19, 2017 on the Royal Society website (see box).
A precious ally for many farmers
The damage they cause to agriculture would also be exaggerated. "Here again, we remain in a very cultural vision of the fox," says Denis Richard Blackbourn, doctor in eco-ethology and ethnozoology, specialist in canine. In rural areas, we have long perceived the animal as the great rival that we had to shoot to protect our chicken coop. In reality, adults only attack large prey, such as chickens, when it comes to feeding their young. Otherwise, it is far from being their favorite prey. And on the other hand, they will only hunt those that are most easily accessible, and they are often not those of poultry farms. "
Thierry Chalmin, head of the wildlife commission at FNSEA, the first agricultural union, nuances a little. "The animal remains a predator to watch closely in areas where poultry farming remains important," he begins. But the damage that foxes cause is much less than that of wild boars. And they are no longer on the pest list today. "
Above all, Thierry Chalmin invites us to no longer see the fox as a chicken thief, but also as a precious ally for many farmers. We come back to the animal's appetite for small rodents. "These cause great damage to our crops and our meadows," says Thierry Chalmin. An invasion of a vole can for example completely destroy a meadow, by dint of digging galleries and turning the earth upside down. The administrator of the FNSEA assures him: the look of the farmers changes little by little on the goupil. "Many are also hunters, and among them, some simply stop shooting foxes," he illustrates.
Impossible common ground?
Thierry Chalmin goes further, by calling to think twice before classifying the fox in the harmful species in all the Hexagon during the next update of the list. Either by 2022. The end of the tunnel for foxes? "The problem is the hunters," says Marc Giraud. They are not about to change their eyes. They are already eating their breeding casseroles, released into the wild for hunting. And then, the fox classified as harmful, it is the possibility of leaving the rifle all the year. "
"Caricatural", criticizes Willy Schraen, who evokes the destruction of foxes as a mission which hunters carry out at the request of the State, "when the animal is overcrowded on a territory and weakens the balances". "Fewer and fewer hunters are taking on this role, as they can no longer be pointed at," he says. However, Willy Schraen confirms Marc Giraud's fears: "We will not ask that the fox be removed from the pest list, it would be a bad idea". However, it leaves the door open to the idea of adaptive management, territory by territory. "But to achieve this, we would have to bring all the players together calmly around the same table," he says. We are far from it today. "
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The fox, an ally in the fight against Lyme disease?
Rodents that evolve close to the ground are easy prey for mites present in the larval state. However, these rodents are often carriers of infections which they then transmit to the tick, which will then, potentially, contaminate other animals and so on. The starting theory of this study published on July 19, 2017, on the site of The Royal Society, was that by reducing the number of rodents hosts of tick-borne infections, their predators - including the fox - could participate in the reduced risk of their transmission to humans.
To verify this, the predators observed twenty one-hectare forest plots in the Netherlands with different densities of predators, reported Sciences et Avenir . Result: the greater the number of foxes and martens, the lower the number of ticks infected. The reason would be that the rodents go out less in the territories where the predators are in number and would therefore be less likely to be bitten by ticks.
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