Can red foxes still be hunted indefinitely all year round? Its fate will soon be determined for the 2026-2029 period, and it could once again be part of the ESOD list, short for “species likely to cause harm”, a list that allows harvesting without quotas.
“Socially, this no longer works. We must stop the extermination of foxes at all costs,” protests Franck Vigna, spokesman for the Renard Grand-Est collective, which unites some sixty establishments related to nature protection, and which sent a letter to all the prefects of the Grand-Est region to request the removal of foxes from this “death list”.
“This is ecological nonsense. The fox is a native predator. It does not pose a public health problem. Killing foxes because they kill chickens is pointless! We need to protect chicken coops better,” says Franck Vigna, who is trying to raise public awareness of the issue with the support of extensive scientific documentation.
Among hunters, there are no generalizations regarding this issue, the fate of the fox depends on the nuances. “It’s not because it can be classified as dangerous that we will shoot at all costs. The hunter has no shooting reflex. He is not an enemy to be defeated. We like to see them pass by. When we are positioned and we see them pass five meters away, it is good. We photograph them more often than we kill them, especially because there are fewer of them than before,” believes Jérémy Herel, hunter in Martigny-les-Bains (Vosges).
“This classification of foxes as ESOD allows us more freedom to intervene, on a case-by-case basis, in the event of targeted damage,” added the person campaigning for “sensible hunting, as foxes benefit nature by eating breeding field mice.”
Scabies victim
Across the Vosges department, according to the federation, “the fox population declined significantly three to four years ago due to a mange epidemic. We have given strict instructions that samples be kept to a minimum,” explains its president, Frédéric Tissier.
The numbers are slowly increasing, towards “a balanced population today. But if tomorrow the animal is no longer classified as dangerous, this could be a major disaster, because trappers will no longer be able to respond to specific demands and the animal could reproduce rapidly,” adds Frédéric Tissier.
Without providing annual collection directives to the hunting community, the Vosges federation primarily performs a balancing act in dealing with this very cunning animal. “The problem facing foxes today is their ability to adapt quickly to new environments. Currently, they are concentrated around residential areas, near abandoned land, agricultural buildings, attracted by rubbish bins and rubbish dumps. This is much more problematic than in forests, because they approach houses and farms. We must therefore monitor them very closely to avoid their presence in these places,” warned the president of the Vosges federation.
