Wednesday 06 September 2023 | 1

Hunting grey partridges: converting the try in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques!

Hunting grey partridges: converting the try in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques!

Mis à jour le 28 December 2023

While grey mountain partridges are considered as ‘near-threatened’ in France by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), prefects persist and continue to authorise them being hunted. In 2022, we filed an urgent plea so that no more killing could take place in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. After having won the case on this point, we are also asking for a definitive cancellation of the decree. The hearing will take place at the Pau Administrative Tribunal on 7 September 2023 at 10:30am. Many others are planned in the months to come.

Hr blog

Updated 28 September 2023:

We learnt this evening of the cancellation the prefectural decree of 2022 that we had already had suspended at that time. It has thus been ruled that the Pyrénées-Atlantiques Prefecture had published a document that was in fact illegal to authorise killing grey mountain partridges. A great victory that, we hope, will mean that this year these birds’ lives will be saved as they are still threatened by death in the department.

Mountain Galliformes are threatened from all sides, and hunting is one of the main reasons for their decline. As the season of hearings for the 2023-2024 period begins, we remain completely ready to rally on last year’s cases. On 4 October 2022, a few days before the suspension on hunting black grouse, rock ptarmigan, and rock partridges in Savoie, the Pau Administrative Tribunal judge suspended the decree authorising the killing of grey mountain partridges in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Thanks to this success, none of them were slaughtered in the department in the previous season.

Strengthened by this victory, we are now counting on the Tribunal to definitively cancel this decree following the hearing that will take place on 7 September 2023 in Pau. And we are convinced that the judge will not deviate from the position held by the emergency suspension interim tribunal as the illegalities are so obvious.

While this species of Galliforme is endangered, the Prefect has authorised each shooter in the department to kill four birds: a planned massacre for this emblematic species in the Pyrenees mountain range, for whom European law has banned putting their good conservation status in danger.

And what can we say about the procedure for passing this decree that was botched by the Prefecture? It should have made specific information available to the public but it did nothing. In doing so, it proved that it did not have the slightest idea of the number of grey partridges it its area...

Currently, we are still waiting for the judge’s decision for the Pyrénées-Orientales department after the hearing on 30 August. And in the weeks to come, we will be at numerous tribunals, both to get definitive cancellations and urgent suspensions of the decrees for the 2022-2023 season. With a clear objective: to continue to give a voice to black grouse, rock partridges, hazel grouse, or even rock ptarmigans, until we put a stop to them being hunted once and for all!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Maxime Lambret
Hr blog
#Chasse
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trochu | Friday 08 September 2023

Tous ces préfets ne sont que la honte de plus pour ce pays, car pour continuer à cautionner et autoriser la chasse de cette perdrix parmi tant d'autres animaux dont aussi les oiseaux, il faut avoir un pois chiche à la place du cerveau, car toute personne évoluée et intelligente, est bien consciente qu'il y a abus et abus, qu'il y a sadisme et perversité de la part des chasseurs qui jubilent et sont avides du pouvoir de tuer et massacrer d'autres êtres vivants que sont les animaux, tout cela est scandaleux et nous devons le dénoncer fermement. La chasse ne relève de toute façon que du sadisme et de la cruauté avec sentiment de toute puissance et supériorité sur les autres êtres vivants, la mentalité des chasseurs dans la grande majorité vole très bas...