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The French are afraid of hunting

The French are afraid of hunting

The French are afraid of hunting
19.09.2016
The French are afraid of hunting
Wildlife

The majority of French people do not feel safe in the countryside during hunting season, as evidenced by this recent IFOP poll for ASPAS and One Voice (1), from 12th to 14th September 2016. It confirms that 8 out of 10 French people want to see Sunday become a non-hunting day, and reveals that 9 out of 10 are in favour of a reform of the organization and regulation of hunting.

A Sunday without hunting? The question does not divide! 78% of the respondents are in favour (compared to 54% in 2009 (2)). This demand is not driven by “urban ecological woes” so vilified by the hunting world, but by 76% of the population living in rural areas.

Hunting accidents remain a taboo subject in France. Yet no other recreational activity than hunting poses such a public safety problem. This weekend in Loire-Atlantique, a woman took a boar bullet in her thigh while she was gardening. An accident that occurred during the opening of the game hunting season which did not begin until the next day in this department! Of the 71% of French people who regularly frequent
the countryside (several times a month), 61% do not feel safe when they go out during the hunting season. Last year, nearly 2 out of 10 victims were not hunters. The death of Samuel (20 years old) in Isère, then that of Gaël (43 years old) in Haute-Savoie had once again underlined the difficult cohabitation of hunting with all the other outdoor activities.

Since 1982, there is no longer a perimeter of security around homes (3). In 2003, the obligation of a national day without hunting per week was abolished by Roselyne Bachelot. There is no regular evaluation of the knowledge or physical abilities of hunters, nor is there any alcohol tests during hunting: a laxity that the majority of French people find unjustifiable.

It is not surprising that today, 91% of our fellow citizens are in favour of a reform of the organization and regulation of hunting to
adapt it to today’s society!

For more than 20 years, ASPAS have been asking governments to take a simple and democratic step in sharing the space between a small million hunters and the majority of the population: the truce of Sunday hunting. Did you say lobby?

One Voice fights against the practice of hunting in France and around the world, and has been campaigning for a Sunday without hunting since its creation in 1995 under the sponsorship of Théodore Monod.

(1)
Download the results of the study

(2)
IFOP / ASPAS survey conducted in July 2009.

(3)
Excerpt from How to walk in the woods without getting shot « Sincethe circular Deferre of October 15 1982 the Prefects are invited to no longer prohibit hunting in a perimeter around houses, but to regulate shooting in the direction of these dwellings. For example, shots « within range » or within a certain distance (usually 150 meters) are generally prohibited in the direction of « dwellings, tracks and public roads, railways and railway rights-of-way ». power lines, airports, public meeting places and stadiums. In this context, there is nothing to prevent hunters from leaning right against a house and shooting outwards!”

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One Voice infiltrates the Angora industry and reveals the torture of rabbits in French farms

One Voice infiltrates the Angora industry and reveals the torture of rabbits in French farms

One Voice infiltrates the Angora industry and reveals the torture of rabbits in French farms
15.09.2016
One Voice infiltrates the Angora industry and reveals the torture of rabbits in French farms
Fashion

On September 15, One Voice, an animal rights association that has been active since 1995, will release a video and an investigation report summarizing months of undercover work inside several French Angora rabbit farms. The images and the comments of the breeders gathered on this occasion are without appeal: not only are the rabbits raised in battery style conditions of feeding, but comfort and hygiene are more than doubtful here. They are overexploited in a cruelty that falls on
deaf hears the screams of their agony.

Stacked in multiple cages, the angora rabbits filmed by the investigators of One Voice in the French farms finally have no fate more enviable than those of China. It will be remembered that a film broadcast by the PETA association on Chinese rabbit farms (90% of world production)
chilled the opinions in 2013.

Unfortunately, good animal welfare practices, though recommended by the Ministry of Agriculture as the guiding principles of a five-year plan to 2021, do not seem to be more concrete. And yet, here and there we boast about the reputation for fine quality French angora, something that is just tied to the hair of an animal bred for only one thing and not for the hideous methods of those who exploit it for profit.

A furious investigation …

This is important investigative work. Investigators from the Whistle-blower Association have infiltrated this environment for months (In France there are about forty farms operating with thousands of rabbits, figures obtained during our investigation and for which we have not been able to obtain any official documents as the sector seems to be poorly regulated). Their objective was to study the whole chain, to document the hair removal from rabbits because it does not happen every day. The rotation in the activities plays: phases of reproduction, the sexing of baby rabbits, food production with the flesh from unwanted males (males have less hair, they are mainly intended for pâté or the butchers). A lot of waiting between hair removal, three times a year, which means permanent stress for rabbits, stripped after the “harvesting of hair” and exposed to thermal shocks, with no further temperature protection in their hutches.

The association One Voice therefore worked for one semester, from February to July 2016, in six different farms: their findings take stock of the state of play in a sector in decline, but still harmful, if we judge by this simple workers recorded comment, among others: « the females are a little more fragile than the males at the level of the skin. It happens that it tears. Sometimes, like, oops, there is a piece of skin that comes with it. When it starts, I have had times when I have torn off everything, I had to finish removing hair with scissors because all the skin came off, so there you spend more time. I have seen it sometimes where you spend up to two hours on a rabbit that was tearing everywhere. Sometimes you say to yourself, you’d better knock her on the head that one.  »

Large-scale public action

Disgusted by the screaming of rabbits hastily being stripped of hair, not simply combed as one would like to believe, Muriel Arnal, president and founder of One Voice, takes the same position here as in the case of the use of all animal fur: Angora must be banished from France, and we have great hope to make things change for these animals. Our investigation legally supports our demand: yesterday we obtained the ban on the sale of fur from dogs and cats imported from China. There is no reason that products of angora, obtained in such conditions, can be freely circulating on home ground.  »

State mediation is essential to act with stakeholders in this sector, which visibly enjoys great flexibility in terms of regulations and controls with the Departmental Directions of the Protection of Populations (DDPP). “To stop such practices, surviving form the Middle Ages and based on an unworthy cruelty, we are ready to work with the breeders to support them in their conversion,” explains Muriel Arnal.

One Voice (France representative of the international Free Fur Alliance coalition) has chosen to lodge a complaint against the main local breeders, located in Loire-Atlantique (44), on the basis of several
breaches of the regulations in force (breeding conditions and
slaughtering, acts of cruelty). A practice deemed unacceptable, the
sale of rabbits that have developed breast tumours to an experimental
laboratory, where they will experience a second ordeal, weighed up in
the choice of a legal action that targets the top of the chain.

Angora, out of farms and cabinets

On the stop-angora.fr site, a petition has been launched to the Minister of Agriculture so that emergency measures, precautionary measures or controls are taken in place on these farms, and that in the long run both their activity and trade in products of Angola are banned in France. In addition, the association invites the public to stop buying Angora wool fabrics and to empty their closets. “From the footage, I would not understand why people could continue to wear sweaters with a smile in angora. We will be able to collect them and bring them to cat shelters, where they will be much more useful,” concludes Muriel Arnal, who hopes for an influx of cartons containing “angora” signed clothing, resulting from animal suffering to the offices of her association…

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A new case of the Link between all violence

A new case of the Link between all violence

A new case of the Link between all violence
23.08.2016
A new case of the Link between all violence
Domestic animals

Morbihan (56) – The wife of the farmer ran away. She did not hesitate to take a stand against her brutal husband, because now she is safe from his violence, she knows what is happening on the farm. She denounces the blows from iron bars or clubs that unceremoniously fall on piglets and sows’ in her testimony, she mentions that the breeder goes so far as to plant his fingers in the eyes of the animals, beating them until they bleed. The most ill-fated corpses will not reach the abattoir, who themselves could raise the alarm. They will be discreetly abandoned in the countryside. One Voice filed a complaint  to ensure that the 200 pigs from the farm were kept safe.

If there is still a need to exemplify the link between animal abuse and violence against humans, here is a new individual case that will
convince. The Zoe cell, responsible for investigations within the One Voice association, was alerted before the summer of an untenable situation. The investigations are without appeal. The wife complained of domestic violence, but she was worried about the fate of the pigs of the farm, delivered to the free will of the master of the place.

Everyone is king at home, until mistreatment, punishable by law, requires outside intervention. The story of the fugitive wife and initial findings of investigation on the conditions of detention of animals have led One Voice to file a complaint and to mobilize around such unworthy behaviour.

Set in a perimeter without much maintenance, the buildings are in rough blocks, with tin roofs. These primary boxes have neither light nor litter, and the grated area much smaller than the mud where the piglets amass in number. Some suffocate, all dirty, either nervous or have given up. Pregnant sows remain enclosed in metal stalls, exposed without water in full sunlight, frothy lips, dehydrated. They will be in the wind or driving rain for hours until the farmer remembers them. A spell totally inappropriate for animals sensitive to climatic conditions, like the cleanliness of the buildings they occupy.

The farmer does not care. His cruelty is exercised freely. It is to be feared that the departure of his wife accentuates the resentment towards the animals under his responsibility. Such conditions are unacceptable, regardless of the economic context.

One Voice, an association committed since 1995 in the defence of the animal cause, has decided to make a complaint so that first protective measures are taken before definitive replacement of the pigs away from the farmer. This complaint, so-called duplicates with that of the battered wife, was initially classified without consequences. A second complaint was therefore lodged emphasizing these new elements, so that the authorities intervene urgently. A petition also circulates on the website and the social networks of the association.

Muriel Arnal, president-founder of One Voice, justifies the will of action of her association: « The suffering inflicted daily on defenceless animals is intolerable to us. When it is the work of violent individuals who are also guilty of mistreatment of other humans, which is generally the case with such owners, we do not sit idly by and watch. I hope that they will be put out of harm’s way and that we will quickly find a permanent solution for his pigs that we forget that they are indeed sentient beings. »

Press
contact, Muriel Arnal

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Victory for the French and for the wolves!

Victory for the French and for the wolves!

Victory for the French and for the wolves!
12.08.2016
Nimes
Victory for the French and for the wolves!
Wildlife

Shooting wolves has been stopped Thanks to citizen associations! The Administrative Court of Nîmes has just ruled in favour of ASPAS, Ferus, One Voice and ALEPE, by suspending on an interim basis the Prefectural Decree of 22 July 2016 which unlawfully ordered the “reinforced levy on shooting” a wolf for a duration of 6 months in 6 communes in the Caucasus sector Méjean, in Lozère.

Most French people want wolves to be kept in our country. This is done: in his order suspending the order on 9 August, the judge stressed that the sustainability of sheep farming in the department is not compromised by the presence of a wolf, and notes the absence of the implementation of « defensive shooting » prior to the enhanced levy on shooting.

The administrative judge recalls that battling against wolves cannot be allowed if everything has not been implemented to protect herds at risk of predation. There are indeed other means of protecting herds than a spate of shootings that the Prefects can authorize, who aims to kill wolves. A protected species, only as a last resort should this be considered and only if damage is caused despite the implementation of protective means.

The court thus confirms a « serious doubt as to the legality » of this prefectural decree that does not respect the conditions defined in the ministerial decree governing the shooting of wolves, yet itself extremely permissive.

It is unacceptable that the Prefects, representatives of the law, continue to allow the shooting of a protected species while many herds are left without surveillance or protection, at the mercy of other natural predators such as stray dogs.

The solution is not in slaughter but in a profound change in farming practices and the subsidy system for pastoralists, which currently does not sufficiently encourage good practice.

In the run-up to the regional elections, this fundamental problem is surely too delicate to be tackled by politicians of all types who prefer to multiply the shooting of wolves by not rubbing hunters and the agricultural lobbies up the wrong way, at the risk of taking illegal decisions.

Finally, the associations demand the end of shooting wolves, and the suppression of the compensation given to farmers not protecting their livestock.

 

Press :

Madline Reynaud – ASPAS

Jean-François Darmstaedter – FERUS

Muriel Arnal – One Voice

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