Klöckner calls for use of poison in response to mouse plague

Every fox counts: Federal Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner has declared field mice in Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony to be a veritable “plague”, according to a media report The solution, in Klöckner’s view, lies in expanding the scope for federal states to combat mice.

An emergency authorisation for rodenticides is already being discussed; “chemical mouse control” is described as “existentially necessary”. PETA sharply criticises the planned exemptions for the use of poison bait and, at the beginning of this week, wrote to the agricultural ministries in Erfurt, Magdeburg and Hanover urging them to ignore Klöckner’s proposal and instead halt fox hunting in their respective federal states as the most effective measure: studies show that each fox consumes around 3,000 to 5,000 mice per year.

Hobby hunters, on the other hand, pursue these beneficial animals relentlessly, viewing them either as living targets or as competitors. In Thuringia alone, hunters killed more than 13,000 foxes during 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 hobby hunting.

PETA is appealing to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the relevant state ministries to put an end to this ecological madness, to protect the natural predators of mice, and to refrain from introducing poison into the environment.

"From an ecological and ethical standpoint, it is unacceptable that tens of thousands of the mice's natural predators are killed every year through pointless fox culling, while at the same time tonnes of poison bait are being spread across fields. We therefore appeal to the agricultural ministers of the states of Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony to ignore the proposal of the Federal Minister of Agriculture, and instead to immediately halt fox hunting and protect the environment».

Nadja Michler, wildlife policy officer at PETA.

While foxes and birds of prey cannot, from a population biology perspective, keep a large mouse population in check on their own, several forestry research institutes emphasize that by protecting foxes and other predators, excessive mouse population growth in forests can be delayed or prevented.

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

Across Germany, hobby hunters kill more than 400,000 foxes every year. Hunters pursue them with traps, rifles, and den hunting. Shot animals frequently flee with open wounds, or die slowly and in agony in traps. Foxes not only feed on mice — which farmers dislike — but also help ensure the survival of their prey species by catching weak and sick animals, thereby immediately eliminating sources of disease. Hunting associations typically argue that foxes threaten the populations of certain small game species such as partridges and hares. However, experts agree that the drastic population declines of affected species are attributable to industrialized agriculture and the accompanying loss of habitat. Added to this is the fact that hunters in Germany themselves kill around 190,000 brown hares every year.

In Luxembourg, fox hunting has been banned since April 2015. PETA is calling for a nationwide ban on fox hunting in Germany as well, and has launched a corresponding Petition gestartet. Denn weder aus wildbiologischer noch aus gesundheitlicher Sicht besteht ein Grund für die Bejagung der Tiere.

„Jäger hängen Füchsen bewusst ein schlechtes Image an, um ihrem blutigen Hobby weiter nachgehen zu können“, so Michler. Die zum Teil noch immer geäusserten Bedenken gegenüber den Beutegreifern beruhen auf längst widerlegten Annahmen. Deutschland ist seit 2008 frei von terrestrischer Tollwut und der Fuchsbandwurm zählt zu den seltensten Parasitosen Europas. Die Fuchsjagd hat zudem keinerlei regulierende oder reduzierende Auswirkungen auf die Population, weil Verluste rasch durch Zuwanderung und steigende Geburtenraten ausgeglichen werden. Fuchspopulationen regulieren sich aufgrund von Sozialgefügen sowie Nahrungsverfügbarkeit und Krankheiten selbst.