One Voice is defending a caracal, a victim of wild animal trafficking
One Voice is filing a civil case alongside the Athénas Centre against a caracal trafficker in Côte-d’Or.
In August 2021, the Athénas Centre welcomed a caracal kept illegally by an individual near Dijon. One Voice is suing for this caracal alongside our partner to fight against wild animal trafficking.
On Friday 16 December 2022, almost a year and a half after the fact, an inhabitant of Côte-d’Or will be tried at the Dijon Legal Tribunal at an appearance on prior admission of guilt for having illegally kept a caracal. He is accused: of having opened an establishment to keep non-domestic animals without authorisation, of having exploited this establishment with no certificate of competency, and of having transferred animals without authorisation.
This illegal trade inflicts great suffering on the individuals concerned, dragged from the freedom of where they were born and brought up in a farm, where they are considered solely as goods, respected only for their market value, and left at the hands of traffickers’ greed. Their intrinsic value, their right to live in peace, and their role in ecosystems — so badly damaged by humans — fall by the wayside.
Entrusted to the Athénas Centre by court order in 2021, the caracal should have been sent back to its original habitat. Everything had been planned by the Association: the travel costs to South Africa to a shelter specialising in big cat rehabilitation… Despite their efforts to offer a dignified life to this caracal, the Regional Directorate for the Environment, Development and Housing (DREAL) and the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB) have decided to have it removed from the Association! We share this lack of understanding and anger with our partner.
With their decision, the authorities have shown that they do not want anything to do with the suffering of wild animals. Their repeated mistrust of animal defenders (we are thinking about Maya, placed into a zoo in Italy) is not encouraging for the future of everyone on the planet, in a context where they should have every interest in worrying about it. We will continue to fight so that more animals can discover the path to a dignified life, much like Patty, Marli, Hannah, and Céleste.
The hearing will therefore be held on Friday 16 December at the Dijon Legal Tribunal.
Translated from the French by Joely Justice