Klöckner calls for use of poison due to mouse plague

Every fox counts: according to a media report, Federal Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner has declared field mice in Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony to be a veritable "plague". Klöckner sees the solution in expanding the federal states' scope for combating mice.

An emergency approval for rodenticides is already being discussed; a "chemical control of mice" is said to be "existential". PETA has sharply criticised the planned exemptions for the use of poisoned bait and, in a letter sent earlier this week, urged the agriculture ministries in Erfurt, Magdeburg and Hanover to ignore Klöckner's proposal and instead stop fox hunting in their federal state as the most effective measure: studies show that each fox consumes around 3,000 to 5,000 mice per year.

Recreational hunters, on the other hand, relentlessly pursue these beneficial animals, viewing them as living targets or as competitors. In Thuringia alone, hunters killed more than 13,000 foxes in the 2018/2019 hunting year. In Saxony-Anhalt, the number of foxes killed exceeded 16,000, while in Lower Saxony more than 50,000 foxes lost their lives to recreational hunting.

PETA appeals to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the relevant state ministries to put a stop to this ecological madness, to promote the natural counterparts of mice, and to refrain from introducing poison into nature.

“It is unacceptable from an ecological and ethical standpoint that the senseless killing of foxes claims the lives of tens of thousands of mice's natural adversaries every year, while at the same time tonnes of poisoned bait are to be spread across the fields. We therefore appeal to the agriculture ministers of the states of Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony to ignore the federal agriculture minister's proposal and instead put an immediate stop to fox hunting and protect the environment.”

Nadja Michler, wildlife specialist at PETA.

From a population-biology perspective, foxes and birds of prey cannot keep a large mouse population in check on their own. However, several forestry research institutes emphasise that sparing foxes and other predators can delay or prevent excessive mouse reproduction in forests.

According to the German Federal Environment Agency, between roughly one hundred and several hundred tonnes of so-called rodenticides (chemical poisons) were used annually in agriculture in Germany between 2015 and 2018. Around ten different toxic substances are currently authorised. In Thuringia in particular, the common hamster is also massively endangered, so the use of poison would be utterly irresponsible purely from a species-protection standpoint.

Across Germany, recreational hunters kill over 400,000 foxes every year. Hunters pursue them with traps, rifles and earth hunting. Animals that have been shot often flee with open wounds or die slowly and agonisingly in traps. Yet foxes not only feed on the mice so unpopular with farmers, but also secure the survival of their prey species by catching weak and sick animals, thereby immediately eliminating sources of disease. Hunting associations frequently claim that foxes threaten the populations of certain small-game species such as grey partridge or hares. Experts, however, agree that the drastic population declines of the species concerned are attributable to industrialised agriculture and the associated loss of habitat. On top of this, hunters in Germany themselves kill around 190,000 brown hares every year.

In Luxembourg, fox hunting has already been banned since April 2015. PETA is also calling for a nationwide ban on fox hunting in Germany and has launched a corresponding petition started. Because there is no reason, either from a wildlife biology or a health perspective, for hunting these animals.

„Hunters deliberately give foxes a bad image so they can continue pursuing their bloody hobby", says Michler. The concerns still occasionally voiced about predators are based on assumptions that have long since been disproven. Germany has been free of terrestrial rabies since 2008, and fox tapeworm is one of the rarest parasitic diseases in Europe. Fox hunting also has no regulating or reducing effect on the population, as losses are quickly offset by immigration and rising birth rates. Fox populations regulate themselves through social structures as well as food availability and disease.