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Fox Caught Stealing 19 Pétanque Boules Spurs Tracker-Assisted Hunt in Dordogne

A hidden camera caught the nocturnal thief, prompting a tech‑aided hunt to recover €800–900 in gear.

Overview

  • In Saint‑Vincent‑de‑Connezac, a couple learned from surveillance video that a fox had been carrying off their pétanque boules, the heavy metal balls used in a popular French lawn game.
  • They had noticed balls vanishing over several weeks and first suspected a person, since they left the gear out on a home boulodrome in their garden.
  • Footage showed the fox returning most nights to take one ball at a time, for a total of 19 missing and an estimated loss of €800–900.
  • The couple attached a tracker to a remaining ball to trace the fox’s den and said they would dig if needed to recover the cache.
  • Some of the sets were gifts for Valentine’s Day and an 18th birthday, so the search aims to reclaim keepsakes as well as costly equipment.