On Friday, the Environment Department of Luxembourg's Ministry of Sustainable Development and Infrastructure, together with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture, Viticulture and Consumer Protection, announced that agreement has been reached at government level of the wording of the law banning concerning the opening of hunting for hunting year 2016/2017.
As a result, the ban on fox hunting and the "quiet period" in forests introduced in 2015 will be extended by one year. However, this does not constitute an outright ban and may be repealed - see below.
In a related piece of news, the Department of Environment will establish an ad hoc "fox" monitoring group, comprising representatives of the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Infrastructures, the Department of Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture, Viticulture and Consumer Protection and the Ministry of Health.
The main objectives of this group will be to monitor the level of the public health component and to ensure a representative sample of 150-200 fox corpses are delivered annually to the laboratory of the Veterinary Services Administration (ASV) for testing for the presence of rabies, trichinosis and echinococcus (Echinococcus multilocularis) and in order to deliver the results to the European authorities in the context of Community and national regulations concerning the monitoring of zoonoses and zoonotic agents. The monitoring group will also assess the extent of damage caused by foxes.
The fox retains its legal status of game species under the Act of 25 May 2011 concerning hunting. This implies that the Environment Minister may at any time, in case of danger to public health, cancel the suspension of fox hunting. Foxes that cause problematic behaviour in farms may be taken at any time by the ASV.
See http://www.chronicle.lu/component/jak2filter/?Itemid=192&jakeyword=fox%20hunting for article published last January.
