Almost all French people do not know there exists a function called « lieutenant of louveterie ». The louveterie was created by Charlemagne in 812 and its purpose was to kill wolves. Nowadays, these people kill species, who allegedly cause damages; mainly foxes. The killings can pretty much take place anywhere, as has been proven by the many recent horror stories of lieutenants of louveterie killing defenceless animals in the middle of cities in front of everyone, when in the immense majority of countries the animals would have been tranquilised and brought back to their natural habitat alive.
Lieutenants of louveterie are also responsible for administrative and municipal searches. They are appointed by the prefect, upon reception of the President of the Departmental Hunters Federation, for an amount of six renewable years. They have the status of volunteer civil servant and are sworn in. They account for about ten individuals per department. In their publications, lieutenants of louveterie often explain that they are responsible for finding solutions to wildlife issues (please see the above paragraph).
Their hunting methods are also particularly shameless, as they attack at night to legally and discreetly kill animals. They often start around 8.30 p.m. and finish around 7 a.m. and operate the most between 10 p.m. and 12.30 a.m. They are equipped with portable headlights and a 4×4 with long-range headlights. Their techinque is to blind animals, in order to immobilise them, and shoot them with a rifle or shotgun. These tactics are the same often used by poachers (nocturnal hunting with headlights to blind animals).
Lieutenants of louveterie also kill foxes during breeding season in spring, which results in foxes having to raise their fox cubs as a single-parent, which is very challenging, or in the worst case the little ones will die, if they both parents have been killed.
Hunting federations encourage lieutenants of louveterie to kill the maximum amount of animals that they can. Some of them even give financial contributions to these « volunteers » to pay for their ammunition. The majority of them will give them a sum of money, when they bring back the tails of the foxes they killed, a particularly backwards, barbaric and cruel practice. Often the amount of money given for each tail will be 5 euros, which gives pause ethically speaking as regards to the cost attributed to the death or to that matter the life of an animal.
This practice has no place in our contemporary society drawn towards ethical awareness and progress.
CoRAC 