One Voice is bringing a civil case to the tribunal against a bird poacher in Montauban
At the Montuban tribunal, One Voice is giving birds that are poached by illegal traditional hunting methods a voice.
On 26 October at 9am, we will be at the Montauban legal tribunal for the blue tits, great tits, goldfinches, and blackcaps who are victims of a poacher that lives in the south of Tarn-et-Garonne. The man, not content with capturing and killing protected birds, resorted to illegal traditional hunting methods. We will be there once again against these cruel practices and for all the animals who continue to be a target of them.
Updated 27 October:
Shock and frustration are appropriate when faced with the summary penalty order given on 26 October 2023, which sentenced the defendant to a simple fine of 1000 euros plus compensation.
The ruling indicated that “in view of the seriousness of the facts, it does not seem necessary to give a prison term”. This shows serious denial of the captured birds’ distress and agony. We will not stop defending them against poachers.
It was a macabre spectacle that the agents from the French Office of Biodiversity (OFB) discovered during their search of this poacher’s home in Tarn-et-Garonne. There they found that seven goldfinches were being kept prisoner to attract other birds with their song, while twenty-three individuals from other protected species were found lifeless in traps. Their capture is performed in the trapper’s garden, where the victims, who cannot resist the calls of one of their own, have had the misfortune to land, only to find themselves trapped in nets or stuck to perches covered in glue. The distress and agony that these tits and blackcaps have to endure before they take their last breath is unimaginable.
Faced with a resurgence in traditional hunting, we are keeping the pressure on
As well as having been killed while belonging to a protected species, these birds have been killed using methods that are themselves prohibited. Have we forgotten that glue hunting was ruled illegal by the State Council in 2021, following a decision made by none other than the European Court of Justice? And that the French institution once again proved us right a few months later by suspending and cancelling ministerial decrees relating to traditional hunting several times following this, after the government’s stubbornness in relation to persecuting birds?
Obviously caring as little about justice as they do about animals, those killing these little birds stubbornly go out of their way to continue to use these methods again. To the point where the government has given them the gift of ‘experimentation’, intended to show that the use of cages, nets, and decoys would be well and truly selective, which would justify these killings happening again in their eyes.
Zero tolerance for poachers
We will not let either the attempts to revive traditional hunting or the slightest complacency regarding poachers lie. In September 2022, we already succeeded in getting a man who had killed and sold thousands of robins sentenced with a six-month suspended prison sentence and a €25,000 fine. In February 2023, a repeat offender had to defend their actions in front of the courts.
As a civil party in the trial, we will once again give a voice to all of the birds that were killed and will ask for the highest possible penalty for this massacre at the Montauban legal tribunal on Thursday 26 October.
Translated from the French by Joely Justice