A hunting pen in Loire-Atlantique for killing animals in total privacy

At the start, the property was home to a farm of wild boars. But the owner had to close it, forced to by a legal decision (that is what he said anyway, but an intervention by Nos Viventia into this enclosure a few months ago leaves us wondering about this). So, for more than ten years, the power struggle of the locals continued with the owner. Despite regulations banning the possibility of opening such a place (size of the enclosure, protected forest that should allow the animals to pass through, danger to neighbours, and open conflict due to building permits...), the authorities seem to have yielded to all of the owner’s demands. The fences are not regulation size? Never mind, they still authorise the deal!
Even the pipes, small ditches between the ponds, and small streams passing from one property to another, have been blocked by mesh to ensure that no animal survives, something which is normally prohibited.

Because in France, we have a sneaking suspicion that each time hunters ask for something, prefectures let them have it. The lobby is powerful. And how many prefects or parliamentarians are themselves hunters...

The footage from April 2022 that our investigators brought back even shows that in the middle of a clearing there is a small bird farm. Whether it be pheasants or partridges, they are released according to their desires and for ‘shooting sessions’ on live animals. Birds that have not even learnt to live without humans there to feed them, who would never have flown up high or far, as we showed in our previous investigations into these types of breeding farms.

Nature has been pillaged to create this pen. Deer and other woodland animals in the nearby area are often found in traps. A small mound makes one of the fences lower on the outside of the property than on the inside. Animals can therefore easily go into the park but can find it difficult to get back out. The blocked pipes prevent small animals from getting from one pond to the next.

And twice, a few weeks ago, the neighbours protected a large deer that came to find refuge at their house from the hunters and their hounds. And each time, they have to remove the dogs and put off the hunters who are trying to get into their home to kill these splendid animals. A situation that has become unbearable.

Finally, the new owner of the premises has tried to extend their land by trimming their neighbours’ land in order to reach the minimum area for a hunting pen... A scandal that is all the more concerning as the slightest bullet ricocheting would also risk these neighbours’ lives!

Take a look at our infiltration investigations into penned hunting in Bourgogne, Île-de-France, and Sologne.
Sign our petition0073 to ban penned hunting and for a radical reform on hunting!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice