Glue-trap hunting: the Court of Justice of the European Union comes to the rescue of birds!
We were at the Court of Justice of the European Union on Thursday, November 19, 2020 to hear the submissions of the assistant public prosecutor following our complaint to Europe as part of our appeals to the Council of State on the 2018 and 2019 glue-trap hunting in France. Today, Wednesday March 17, the European Court handed down its decision, and it goes our way: it supports the birds! They needed it so badly.
End of playtime for blackbird and thrush gluers!
A great victory! Following in the footsteps of Spain, Malta and Cyprus, where the tradition of glue-trap hunting was also firmly established, the European Court of Justice has ruled that glue-trap hunting must come to an end in France too, and not just by reducing the quota to zero.
According to the European Court of Justice,
“A Member State cannot authorize a method of capturing birds which results in by-catches if it is likely to cause other than negligible damage to the species concerned. The traditional nature of a method of capturing birds, such as hunting with glue, is not in itself sufficient to establish that no other satisfactory solution can be substituted for it”.
“For the hunters who had fun gluing robins, blackbirds and song thrushes to eat them, it’s the end of playtime! This magnificent victory shows just how important it is never to give in to this lobby, which is so entrenched in its cruel and destructive practices. The fight for birds is not over, they remain threatened by other traditional hunts. We’ll be there!”
Muriel Arnal, President of One Voice
As we’ve explained many times over the years, hunting with glue is cruel, because the birds are stuck to the branches where, in panic, they struggle, plucking feathers and breaking limbs. It is also non-selective, meaning that it traps all birds that land, and not just those of the species that the hunters want to capture to make them endure a life in captivity as decoy-birds.
A “cultural importance” that just doesn’t measure up
The Court did not follow the opinion of the assistant public prosecutor. For the European Court, “It is very likely […] that the birds captured will suffer irreversible damage, the birdlime being, by its very nature, liable to damage the plumage of all the birds captured.”
In this decision, the gluing process is clearly condemned. Regional tradition is therefore not in itself a criterion for derogating from the European Birds Directive. Capture with glue damages the plumage of the birds captured, and is therefore prohibited. The EU Court of Justice does not require certainty: the very fact that this hunting method can kill or cripple them is sufficient. In the end, the technique is condemned as much as the tradition.
We’ll soon be before the Council of State again
We said it was up to the hunters to prove that glue-trap hunting did not harm birds. In the end, the hunters’ argument that they were releasing birds of non-targeted species was swept aside… Because, in fact, glue does not make any selection between birds! So there is real hope for birds affected by other types of hunting, particularly traditional hunting!
Now it’s up to the Council of State, a national jurisdiction, to take a stand.
Read the press release from the Court of Justice of the European Union