An advantageous decision for 160 ibex in Bargy!

For years, under pressure from a few farmers and local elected representatives, the Haute-Savoie Prefect has authorised the slaughter of ibex on the sly without prior announcement, arguing that this would curb bovine brucellosis. However, no testing was carried out ahead of time to verify whether the ibex were actually carriers of this disease. Tests were carried out after they had been killed. The result: in 2022, out of the 61 ibex killed, only 3 of them were unwell.

Together with Animal Cross, the French Association for the Protection of Wild Animals, AVES France, France Nature Environnement Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, FNE Haute-Savoie, and the French League for the Protection of Birds [LPO] we have therefore asked the Grenoble Administrative Tribunal to urgently suspend the Haute-Savoie Prefect’s decree of 17 March 2022 that authorised a massacre, even though the ibex species is supposed to be protected!

Wild animals are disappearing before our very eyes and the State still infringes on their protection

This year, the prefecture made various changes with relation to the Prefectural decrees of 2019 and 2022 that we have also had suspended. The outcome was therefore not known in advance.

During the hearing, the urgent applications judge put forward the complexity and the technical nature of the case file. On this occasion, there was a verbal sparring match lasting more than two hours between us and the Prefecture. Our lawyer, from the Thouy Avocats office, valiantly defended the ibex and responded argument by argument to the nonsense put forward by prefecture officials.

A rational decision in favour of ibex

We are therefore more than relieved to state once again that the Grenoble Administrative Tribunal has made a decision in favour of animals. The magistrate also relied on the opinion of the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES) who highlighted the “now very low” rate of seroprevalence as well as the benefits of regularly testing animals. In other words: testing then euthanising condemned individuals with a view to relieving them of the disease, not shooting them in a heap and noting it later...

For now, shooting without prior health testing can no longer be practised in Haute-Savoie. A well-deserved respite once again for these fine climbers that are so vulnerable.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice