Overview
- The Strasbourg prosecutor, following Friday's hearing, asked for a four‑month suspended sentence and said self‑defense does not apply to killing one animal to save another.
- The charge stems from October 18, 2024 in Niederbronn‑les‑Bains, when a 62‑year‑old woman hit a young lynx with a stick after it seized one of her hens.
- An autopsy reported several blows to the head, two skull fractures, and a subdural hematoma, and an OFB specialist said he tried first aid and drove the lynx to a vet where it died two hours later.
- Animal groups joined as civil parties, citing roughly 150 lynx in France and about a dozen in the Vosges, and they criticized the late alert to authorities as cruel.
- The defendant says she panicked and mistook the lynx for a large cat, and the court will rule on May 20 in a decision that could shape how similar farmyard conflicts are judged.