Pleas and unpublished images from One Voice on pheasants and partridges being bred for hunting in La Peyratte
In La Peyratte in the Deux-Sèvres department, pheasants and partridges bred for hunting, as well as the environment, pay a huge price. One Voice has published images and is filing an appeal with L214.
The pheasant and partridge breeding and hunting farm in La Peyratte has requested regularisation on its extension from the Deux-Sèvres Prefecture, which has agreed with them. One Voice has distributed very recent images from the farm and has filed a joint appeal with L214 against this decree on 15 June 2022 at the Poitiers Administrative Tribunal.
Whether it be to protect animals or the environment, there are many reasons to oppose this extension, which will allow the farm to continue to ruin the wetland on which it stands.
Bird droppings fall en masse into the water, thus spreading phosphorus, ammonia, and other various pollutants in a fragile ecosystem. However, any listed establishment such as this one should have had the impact of its expansion on the environment assessed before works. In this case, not content with not having carried out this preliminary study, the farm has not even requested the initial rights to expand and has asked for an even higher authorisation going forward! And this expansion is not insignificant: the capacity is going from 37,000 to 95,200 places.
Breeding birds for the pleasure of shooting them down
Like in many other farms for hunting that we have investigated in the past, the birds are raised in minuscule cages, their beaks are often broken and covered up to avoid injuries during altercations, which are inevitable in such confined spaces, thousands of females are condemned to breed for years and bear the scars, the eggs are retrieved and put into an incubator, then the birds are placed in aviaries where they fling themselves on the nets and cannot learn to fly correctly.
They are subsequently sold to hunting crews and federations who release them to give the impression of the species’ ‘good health’, all while disposing of totally submissive living targets who think that the hunters are approaching them to feed them and are incapable of escaping. Some birds, escaped from cages, incidentally remain in the surrounding area, destined for certain death…
And when they cannot be sold to hunters, as was the case after the lockdowns that led to the cancellation of hunting trips and when avian flu risked farmers losing a lot of money, the authorities authorised additional hunting periods. Simple…
An unpublished investigation to report on the reality experienced by pheasants and partridges in this breeding farm
In 2020, L214 published a study on birds bred for hunting which caused a commotion. In May and June 2022, One Voice’s investigators went back to the site. It was an opportunity to see if things were different now… nothing is, of course. We are all the more aware of the gigantic size of these places seen from above, and the miserable lives of the birds that are shut up in there. And in the cages, there is still overcrowding and chicken wire that injures their legs…
We have therefore decided to unite forces in a joint appeal to attack this decree authorising the expansion of the breeding farm. This was submitted on 15 June 2022 at the Poitiers Administrative Tribunal.
We are more determined than ever to bring an unwavering ethical force down on the industry and the hunting lobby and the farmers who are part of it.
Edit from 7 July 2022:
We had to modify the first version of this article, which erroneously claimed that L214 had taken images in the same breeding farm in 2020. In reality, it was a neighbouring farm; our images are therefore unpublished for this establishment.
Translated from the French by Joely Justice