Mouse damage in forests: Fox hunting is no solution
Forest owners are advised to encourage carnivores such as foxes to settle in order to protect valuable forest stocks.
«An old promise resonates in the forest»
Wood mice cause damage to young trees
In the areas damaged by climate change, young forests are increasingly re-establishing themselves.
This attracts wood mice, which cause damage. Forestry experts recommend regular inspections of forests. At high population levels, short-tailed voles in forests can become a problem, gnawing the bark of young deciduous trees.
Foxes as natural mouse hunters
To prevent mouse damage in broadleaf woodland plantations, preventive biological measures can be taken, such as encouraging birds of prey, constructing passages for foxes, and using flap openings in plantation fences.
The IG Wild beim Wild calls on decision-makers to stop fox hunting as the most effective measure. Studies show that foxes eat around 30 kilograms of mice per year, equivalent to approximately 3’000 to 5’000 mice. Recreational hunters, however, pursue these animals relentlessly, regarding them as living targets or as competitors.
100’000 foxes killed in five years
Over the past five years, militant recreational hunters in Switzerland killed around 100’000 foxes. Yet more and more scientists are calling for a rethink. There is no reason to hunt foxes, either from a wildlife biology or a public health perspective. Switzerland has been free of terrestrial rabies for decades. Alveolar echinococcosis is one of the rarest parasitic diseases in Europe.
That is why the government of Luxembourg already introduced a ban on fox hunting established. The conclusion after eight years: no problems. Fox populations regulate themselves based on social structures, food availability, weather conditions, and disease.
Studies and Sources
- Scientific Literature: Studies on the Red Fox
- Recreational hunters spread diseases
- A ban on pointless fox hunting is long overdue
- Small game hunting and wildlife diseases
Dossiers: Fox in Switzerland: The most hunted predator without a lobby | Fox hunting without facts: How JagdSchweiz invents problems
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier The Role and Criticism of Recreational Hunters we shed light on the training, power and self-image of recreational hunters. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
