Jackdaws are being spared in Brittany!
One Voice has gone to the Rennes Administrative Tribunal for Western Jackdaws. They have just suspended the Côtes-d’Armor, Finistère, and Morbihan prefectural decrees, thus sparing these birds.
Joy and relief. That was what we felt after hearing the decision that has just been made by the Rennes Administrative Tribunal. The hearing took place on 25 May 2022 and related to One Voice’s emergency interim proceedings in the Côtes-d’Armor, Finistère, and Morbihan departments: the three prefectural decrees have been urgently suspended. Some have unfortunately already been killed due to the delay between the publication date of the orders and their implementation being shorter than before, and not allowing the procedure to happen as quickly as we would like. Jackdaws will therefore be spared from today!
During the hearing dealing with the three cases concerning the Breton departments involved in our emergency interim proceeding suspensions, the president wanted us to address the prefectural decrees one after the other because the prefectures each had two representatives who wished to speak. She asked them several questions and was surprised by how vague their responses were.
She wanted to know in particular, in very concrete terms, the methods for implementing alternative solutions and of slaughtering jackdaws and, among other things, the election of the points of contact in each department in charge of observing the damage.
Her surprise that the prefectures could not give objective criteria of the ‘insurmountable’ character of the damage noted, which could ‘justify’ (in the name of the law in any case) the plea to massacre jackdaws, gave us hope.
But this did not end here! She also learnt on this occasion that the points of contact did not follow up, little by little, year after year, on their responses and the demolitions. Classic. The Crow Life Association, also present, also spoke to support these corvids, supposedly protected by law.
Côtes d’Armor:
«1st Article: The execution of the Côtes d’Armor Prefect’s decree of 6 May 2022 derogating from article L. 411-1 of the Environmental Code and the authorisation of the destruction of 8000 Western jackdaws (Corvus Monedula) by shooting or trapping is suspended until 30 September 2022, until the merits of its legality have been decided by a collegial formation of the court.»
Finistère:
«1st Article: The execution of the Finistère Prefect’s decree of 3 May 2022 derogating from article L. 411-1 of the Environmental Code and the authorisation of the destruction of 16,000 Western jackdaws (Corvus Monedula) by shooting or trapping is suspended until 31 March 2023, until the merits of its legality have been decided by a collegial formation of the court.»
Morbihan:
«1st Article: The execution of the Morbihan Prefect’s decree of 26 April 2022 derogating from article L. 411-1 of the Environmental Code and the authorisation of the destruction of 1800 Western jackdaws (Corvus Monedula) by shooting or trapping in the year 2022 is suspended until the merits of its legality have been decided by a collegial formation of the court.»
After years of jackdaws being repeatedly shot down for deceptive reasons, we are delighted that once again the prefectures’ arguments that do not seek animal-friendly solutions will be ruled out by our proceedings. In Brittany, jackdaws will therefore be spared from today. Unfortunately, they did not get this chance in Maine-et-Loire.
Translated from the French by Joely Justice