Hunting: One Voice is at the Grenoble Administrative Tribunal on 18 October for mountain Galliformes
One Voice is at the hearing in Grenoble on 18/10/22 against the decree authorising hunting of black grouse, rock ptarmigans, and rock partridges in Savoie.
Decrees are raining down on all areas where mountain Galliformes live to authorise them being slaughtered by hunters, and this despite their poor state of conservation! For One Voice, this is unacceptable. We have attacked the Savoie Prefectural decree of 23 September 2022 authorising the hunting of black grouse, rock ptarmigans, and rock partridges. The emergency interim proceedings will take place at the Grenoble Administrative Tribunal next Tuesday 18 October. We hope to have this authorisation to hunt them suspended as quickly as possible.
Updated 23 October 2022
The Administrative Tribunal has suspended the Savoie Prefect’s decree.
One Voice is attacking the decree on the basis that it authorises the slaughter of these three species of bird. The novelty in this case file, in relation to others on mountain Galliformes, is that we have chosen to fight not only for lagopus and black grouse, but also for rock partridges that are classified as ‘near-threatened’ and for which the figures from the Mountain Galliformes Observatory [Observatoire des Galliformes de Montagne] (in charge of the in situ inventories) are not good.
Each hunter in each area can kill a rock ptarmigan, while the fate of black grouse and rock partridges is left to the indiscretion of the individual hunting plans which can kill up to 414 individuals for black grouse and 190 for rock partridges.
Is this short-term vision that authorises hunting to continue normal? Is it normal that the quotas are established according to the data collected in the previous year? We do not calculate a provisional budget there: this is not theoretical, lives are at stake, and that is not all! Mountain Galliformes are disappearing bit by bit. If we allow more of them to be slaughtered in years where, finally, they can live and reproduce in peace, this is not how we will ensure that they survive when they are already having such trouble doing so without being in the line of fire. If we add to this that the hunting season is particularly long in this department, we could end up believing that there is a desire to make them disappear as quickly as possible.
Translated from the French by Joely Justice