Birds bred for hunting, a French scandal

Condemning images

Nature lovers will be able to tell you about the beauty of a roaming pheasant on the plains, the happy troops of little partridges running behind their mother in a fallow field. Nothing of this freedom is seen in breeding these birds for hunting, where the only logic is an industrial one: artificial insemination and automated sorting chains for chicks born in incubators, far from their parents. At a prime age, birds will live in blackness for weeks (darkness limits aggression in large concentrations of animals that grow on the ground, up to 50 animals per m2). In the juvenile stage, it will be necessary to tie up their beak with plastic, this is against physical attacks, in these farms where animals are tightly packed together. Pain from the perforation of the nasal septum’s, problems in swallowing which is sometimes fatal.

Prison before death

After weeks in buildings, the birds are stored outdoors. Our images reveal cages of cages and aviaries as far as the eye can see, where there is a strong mixed smell of the putrefaction of dead animals and the faeces of the survivors. There are pairs of partridge’s who are in poor condition, kept in narrow metal boxes where they suffocate in the summer, mutilate each other or permanently trying to escape. Plumages that are groomed in the wild, are dull here, stripped from the pecking between imprisoned birds. These convicts carry the sadness of their destiny.

The human presence is weak, the birds are left to themselves in a world without enrichment at automated feeding, shielded chemistry. The grass has long since disappeared under the incessant round trips of pheasants rendered mad by captivity. The earth is bare, surrounded by fences lined with protective nets. Throwing yourself against the fence is useless, but it is their main activity. The worst is for breeding males, who will not leave their hutch or aviary until after 2 or 3 years of service, first and last flight...

Animal suffering, a cruel business

Since the end of the 1950s, animals have been raised in France only for hunting. Species among the most killed in France are pheasants and partridges they are the main victims. Around 19 million a year are released without need of authorization and with hardly any legal controls.

But these birds, whose genetic profile has made them clumsy and easy to kill, and which will be released after at least 15 weeks of industrial farming, are unable to survive in the wild! Faced with predators, cars, food difficulties, diseases and of course rifles that are lying in wait for them. Their life expectancy is very limited. So, to feed the sport of hunting, we start again each year with this immense and cruel waste.

Everything to do with this business goes against the biological needs of these birds, made to live in compact conditions on a vast scale. Here, deprived of social interactions about learning a "normal" life, enduring the distraught look in their eyes, this long and terrible event from "birth to maturity ", which will end in a violence once caught and crammed into boxes for transportation. They are delivered to the hunting societies, once there (literally or figuratively) they spend long hours until they let go to death. What can justify this suffering organized as a supply chain for millions of susceptible birds? The thrill of a few sadistic hunters?

A scandal at home, which does not honour hunters or authorities who look elsewhere...
#LaChasseUnProblèmeMortel: Please sign our petition, come and say No to hunting at the big anti-hunting event organized by One Voice and its partners in Paris, the 5^thOctober.

Sources: National Wildlife and Hunting Agency, National Union of Game Game Producers (SNPGC), ASPAS Inquiry, "From the Cage to the Gore", November 2018.