Following legal recourse from the LPO and ASPAS, the essential nature of this regulation in derogation from sanitary confinement could not be demonstrated for this species.
The Administrative Court of Nimes has just annulled on the merits thestopped taken on November 10, 2020 by the prefecture of Lozère to maintain the hunting of mouflon within the framework of the exemptions defined by the circular of October 31 from the Ministry of Ecological Transition for the regulation of species likely to cause damage during confinement.
The expectations of judgment are interesting: « LCompensation for damage caused by this species for the year 2017-2018 amounted to 1,920.62 euros and only 86.43 euros for the year 2018-2019. In these conditions and in the present case, the mouflon cannot be regarded as constituting a species liable to cause damage ”
By one order of November 23, 2020, the Administrative Court of Nîmes had already suspended this decree, which has now been canceled with the confirmation that the regulation of the mouflon is never necessary, confinement or not confinement, since the species is very localized in the department of Lozère, with a population estimated at only 300 specimens, and that the damage attributed to the species is minor.
During the health crisis, our two associations attacked many similar prefectural decrees throughout France which granted real privileges to hunters to go and kill wild animals often abusively considered as harmful such as chamois, mouflons, foxes. , nutria, martens, rabbits, badgers, wood pigeons, crows, starlings, magpies, crows and even cormorants yet protected, under the pretext of participating in missions of general interest.
In normal times, the destruction of these species is already highly questionable as the damage supposedly caused is rarely verified and the undesirable effects of such preventive culling, as well as its effectiveness, remain to be measured. So what was the urgency to authorize it during an unprecedented health crisis?
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