Friday 30 September 2022 | 13

One Voice in court for mountain Galliformes!

One Voice in court for mountain Galliformes!

Mis à jour le 02 December 2022

To please hunters, prefects continue to attack birds. More specifically, two mountain Galliformes: black grouse in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and grey partridges in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. The emergency interim hearings are set respectively for Monday 3 October at the Marseille Administrative Tribunal at 2pm, a case in which One Voice is filing a voluntary intervention supporting the Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux [LPO: League for the Protection of Birds] case file on black grouse, and at the Pau Administrative Tribunal on Tuesday 4 October at 2pm, where One Voice will be alone in defending the grey partridges.

Hr blog

Edit from 4 October, 4pm:

At the end of the hearing on 3 October in Marseille, the urgent applications judge announced that they would make their decision “in a few days”.
According to someone from the Pau Administrative Tribunal, the decision should be returned the same evening or the next morning.

Edit from 4 October, 8:20pm:

The urgent applications judge at the Pau Administrative Tribunal suspended the decree on the same day as the hearing. From this evening, grey partridges can no longer can be killed in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department. We are very proud of this victory!

Edit from 5 October 2022:

The Marseille Tribunal has suspended the decrees contested by us and the LPO.

Hunters are rubbed up the right way by the prefectures. A habit of State services who have not always understood that society has changed and that the requirement to set an example in terms of respecting nature and biodiversity is essential for the population. Under the pretext that it has always been done this way, it is no longer conceivable or tolerable to publish decrees indulging hunters, and what’s more, by justifying them, under clearly incorrect pretexts.

According to Muriel Arnal, President of One Voice:

« Hunters are perpetually trying to push the limits of their deadly hobby. But it is not conceivable to leave the animals, registered on the list of animals to be protected, to be shot at! The reports, which confirm what we have been claiming for decades, are not lacking: animals are disappearing from the planet, which is extremely worrying for all of us. We cannot sit back and let this happen. »

Saving grey partridges in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques is urgent!

The Pyrénées-Atlantiques Prefecture has not spared any effort in pleasing hunters. The order that we are contesting and trying to get urgently suspended currently allows them to slaughter four partridges each in the mountain ranges in the 2022-2023 season. But what the Prefecture omits to mention in its decree is, neither more or less, the number of hunters and the maximum number of slaughtered partridges permitted.

If we therefore take the decree at face value, and despite the species being protected on a European level by the Birds Directive, it would theoretically be possible to eradicate these animals from the department, if there are a ‘sufficient’ amount of hunters! An even bigger scandal when we know that the population of these birds is already in constant decline in the Pyrenees mountains, and classified as ‘near-threatened’. The slightest gunshot on one of these grey partridges is therefore also a fatal shot on the entire species.

To the rescue of black grouse on borrowed time...

As for the black grouse in the Alpes de Haute-Provence, the Prefecture has authorised, despite the species being ‘vulnerable’ in the Rhône-Alpes region and also having been ‘near-threatened’ in France since 2016, the slaughter of forty-two of them! An aberration, when we know that the reasons given for issuing this authorisation is the reproductive success of these birds in the current year. But... is this not the exact opposite of the effect expected from the constant conservation efforts implemented for the species? As in many other case files, we are facing prefectural services who are completely disconnected from the climate emergency and, in this context, also from the protection necessary for wildlife.

Animals are dying from the inactivity and short-term vision of our civil service, being reinforced in its conservative habits by a hunting lobby well-rooted in local networks. To promote animal rights and defend birds and all other animals, One Voice will not move an inch.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Julia Mothé
Hr blog

In the subject

Several thousand tenrecs killed in Réunion: yet hunting was illegal! Once again, a tribunal has noted that hunting Galliformes is illegal

Comments 13

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mariannebouteiller04@gmail.com | Friday 30 September 2022

Bonjour
Je ne comprends pas que des arrêtes illégaux puissent circuler sous prétexte de satisfaire ces messieurs dames qui aiment tuer des oiseaux alors même que ces populations d'animaux sont protègées et en voie d'extinction. Ce pays me désole!!! Arrêtons les lobbies. Revenez sur terre! Vous êtes entrain de la détruire et par là même détruire l'humanité et le monde animal. Revenez à la raison. Il est encore temps !!!

Jean Michel | Friday 30 September 2022

Tant que le gouvernement sera au pouvoir les abus de pouvoir aux chasseurs continueront même en complète illégalité ! C'est scandaleux ! J'ai honte d'être français !

trochu | Friday 30 September 2022

Moi je suis véritablement choquée qu'il ne se passe pas une semaine sans qu'il y ait des animaux visés par les chasseurs et par le gouvernement, alors que nous savons tous, qu'un très grand nombre est déjà en voie d'extinction et donc voués à disparaître. Que ce soit les grands animaux sauvages, les animaux qui peuplent nos forêts et contrées, les oiseaux, les mammifères marins et terrestres, à croire qu'ils seraient tous "des nuisibles"... Il faut que cesse ces clichés et cette toute puissance des chasseurs et de ce lobby plus que honteux et scandaleux, qui ne servent qu'à pouvoir donner à des tortionnaires et bourreaux d'animaux, la possibilité de continuer en toute bonne conscience, de tuer toujours plus d'animaux quels qu'ils soient, "juste pour le plaisir de tuer et assouvir leurs soifs de tuer" ! Et je ne comprends pas pourquoi cela est encore possible aujourd'hui, alors que les animaux sont en déclin et qu'ils disparaissent de nos forêts et montagnes, à cause des chasseurs et braconniers qui les traquent et les chassent au quotidien, soit disant "pour une régulation" !
Elle a le dos large la régulation, car en marchant régulièrement à travers champs et forêts, il est choquant de ne plus voir d'animaux tels que les biches, faons, renards, sangliers, lièvres et j'en passe, ils ont tellement été traqués qu'il n'y en presque plus, alors quand est-ce que cela s'arrêtera, et que les responsables de la chasse arrêteront de décimer tous ces êtres vivants ? Je ne supporte plus les chasseurs, braconniers ni ce gouvernement qui n'agit toujours pas en faveur des animaux mais qui continue d'encourager la chasse et tous ces massacres ignobles et immondes d'animaux. Aucun animal ne dérange et est de trop, le seul mobile crédible reste le plaisir de les tuer c'est tout et nous devons agir pour le dénoncer et y mettre fin.

Mar Douk | Friday 30 September 2022

Tous mes compliments pour votre lutte contre les chasseurs qui tuent pour satisfaire un odieux plaisir et cela en opposition avec les sentiments de la majorité Français.