The unbearable persecution of mountain Galliformes meets our resistance!

After those in the Pyrénées-Orientales, the next emergency interim hearings are set at the Grenoble Administrative Tribunal for Isère and Haute-Savoie respectively on 2 October at 10:30am and on 5 October at 1:30pm; for Savoie it will be on 10 October at 10am.

For the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, where we obtained the suspension of the 2022 decree and for which we have just learned of our eventual victory, the urgent applications judge at the Pau Administrative Tribunal set the hearing for 4 October at 3pm for the decree published this year that we are also contesting.

Birds wiped out, but hunting them is still authorised

In the heights of the Alps, a family of birds with unique plumage, changing from mottled brown in summer to white in winter, walk around peacefully. The parents live together for several months and are accompanied by their young. All is calm when, suddenly, a gunshot breaks the silence. The snow is stained with blood; those that survive take flight and a shooter comes to collect the remains of their prey. Rock ptarmigans, like all mountain Galliformes, are killed one by one.

Prefects try to hide behind calculations, caps, and other quotas to justify the unjustifiable: continuing with relentless hunting for the sole pleasure of an ultra-minority and far too influential group. But behind each bird killed is a flock, meaning that the whole species is threatened. Slaughtering is everywhere: no more black grouse in the Ardennes or Franche-Comté, no more grouse in Languedoc-Roussillon, and a situation of near extinction in Alsace and Auvergne where populations of rock partridges are increasingly confined to the tops of the mountain ranges...

Pleas in the face of decrees that cannot be defended

In Isère, the Prefect has authorised each hunter to kill two rock ptarmigans and an unlimited number of hazel grouse. That is hundreds, or even thousands, of birds that could therefore be massacred with the State’s approval. In short, it is like Christmas has come early for hunters.

In Haute-Savoie, rock partridges and black grouse are entering a period of many dangers. For the black grouse, the Prefect has not even bothered to set a tally: it was the president of the departmental federation himself who determined the number of individuals to be killed! Once again, animals are getting ready to pay with their lives for the uncontrolled power of this lobby and the wrongful abstention of the State.

And these plans are repeated in all Alpine and Pyrenean departments... By acting in this way, prefects sign decrees to kill thousands of animals who simply want to live peacefully in the mountain ranges that are their last refuges. We will be present at the Grenoble Administrative Tribunal on 2 October at 10:30am (Isère), on 5 October at 1:30pm (Haute-Savoie), and on 10 October at 10am (Savoie) for them, and at the Pau Administrative Tribunal on 4 October at 3pm (Pyrénées-Atlantiques).

Translated from the French by Joely Justice