Hunting dogs rescued from a repeat offender hunter-breeder from Dordogne who left for Haute-Vienne

Hunting dogs rescued from a repeat offender hunter-breeder from Dordogne who left for Haute-Vienne
04.03.2024
Hunting dogs rescued from a repeat offender hunter-breeder from Dordogne who left for Haute-Vienne
Hunting

Around seventy dogs, geese, rabbits, and goats were kept in what we can only describe as a dumping ground. In other words, a farm building turned into a hellish place of filth and stench for the animals. This is where, on the morning of 4 March 2024, a group of police from the canine department, agents from the Haute-Vienne DDPP, and the mayor of the town where Richard Mandral’s new home is located, were dispatched. As the authorities’ first choice of representative, One Voice was there with its partners to save all of the dogs and to try to put a full stop to this hunter-breeder’s activities.

Along with the Haute-Vienne prefectural veterinary services, since January – and after much investigation footage and many legal proceedings in Dordogne since 2018 – we have moved heaven and earth to secure the maximum number of places in our partner rescue centres throughout France. We were able to rescue most of them. Other organisations had responded to a request from the administration as part of the legal proceedings, and were able to leave with the others. Thanks to them for their assistance. In the afternoon, the dogs were en route to the warmth of a loving home. They will initially be able to benefit from any care necessary, which is provided by professionals.

Run away and start again…

He had already adapted after being convicted for belonging to the Dog Connection network in the 1980s when hunting dogs, in addition to what they had already experienced, were sent to labs, following the summer of 2021, after his other conviction involving our rescue of sixteen of his dogs and multiple investigations, the repeat offender left Dordogne. He moved his out of control activities in breeding hunting dogs to a village situated at least 100 kilometres from there, in another department and even another region. What better way to escape the authorities, neighbourhood conflicts, and visits from our investigators? And to identically reproduce the operation, or even extend its harmful effects to other species…?

At the start of January 2024, we knew that the situation had – clearly – worsened in Haute-Vienne. We alerted the authorities and offered our logistical support. We had to act, and quickly. But without any places in rescue centres, it was not possible to do anything.

…a typical way of life for this hunter-breeder

On site, the dogs were not alone in wading distressed in mud and faeces. Rabbits were caged, chickens, geese, ducks, and turkeys joined their yelping cries. In the middle of the frosty hills, in a hutch in this cursed place, a rabbit snuggles against the lifeless body of its companion. Shut up in a van at the entrance to the property, a goat and its kid gaze upon the second baby that did not survive the birth that, according to the owner, happened overnight…

Nothing will stop us when it comes to these so-called “hunting” dogs!

Disputed by the hunting community, despite the videos and veterinary certificates which attested to the severity of the situation and despite a legal system that has refused to come down hard since 2019 because it only involved so-called “hunting” dogs, we have not given up.

Among our team and our supporters, no one forgot those sad griffons, porcelains, and dachshunds, some of whom wandered aimlessly and others who dug holes around the post where they were tied, while the weaker ones died without even being noticed and were eaten by their peers in a last attempt for survival. The memories of these dogs with deformed teats following repeated pregnancies, who had so much difficulty moving, of these dogs with enormous and painful untreated tumours, still haunt us.

Fear in so many of their looks… Where are the hunters who buy them and yet say they love their dogs? They turn a blind eye.

This repeat offender, who has spent his entire life (almost eight decades) abusing dogs and exploiting bitches, must be brought to justice once and for all! We will also fight tirelessly for the other animals and will be involved in proceedings against Richard Mandral in Haute-Vienne (and will thus bring criminal indemnification proceedings). These animals must not return to him under any circumstances and it is unlikely that he will be able to keep any animal whatsoever or continue his exploitation and reproduction activities. The dogs used by humans for hunting should receive as much care and consideration as any other, and their torturers should receive punishments appropriate for their wrongdoings. Hunter and impunity must no longer go hand in hand.

Mayors: for the sake of animals and the environment, ban hunting!

Mayors: for the sake of animals and the environment, ban hunting!
22.02.2024
Mayors: for the sake of animals and the environment, ban hunting!
Hunting

Every year, hunting kills tens of millions of animals. From farm-raised pheasants released to be slaughtered, to badgers chased into their burrows, to foxes and birds, this hobby spreads suffering throughout our forests. In addition to stealing lives, it is also a mortal danger to the environment: nearly 8,000 tonnes of lead are discarded every year, not to mention millions of plastic and metal cases. Because action is urgently needed at all levels, One Voice is providing mayors with a draft “turnkey” municipal bylaw to put an end to this absolute plundering of nature.

Animals poisoned, nature polluted: the true toll of hunting

There are the tens of millions that hunters take pleasure in killing every year. Then there are all those – protected species included – who are only wounded and survive with their bodies riddled with lead. This metal, still massively used, is a mortal danger: it pollutes waterways and subsoils and, when ingested by mammals or birds, is the cause of numerous diseases, such as lead poisoning. If they don’t die quickly, they in turn contaminate other animals.

While lead is currently banned only in the immediate vicinity of wetlands, and is still regularly used in ball-trap events, it’s high time to go further: together with the European Environmental Bureau, One Voice is campaigning for these bans to be strengthened. The survival of fish, birds and all those who pay a high price so that a handful of individuals can practice this deadly hobby depends on it.

Every walker knows that, in addition to lead, the soil of our forests is littered with cartridge cases, a mixture of plastic and metal. This pollution is largely kept secret, yet there are ways of taking action!

Mayors: you can act!

Local councilors are often powerless to prevent the destruction of the environment in their communities. When it comes to hunting, the prefects are all-powerful, and it’s easy to understand why when you see how their decisions are all too often taken with the sole aim of satisfying the demands of this lobby – to the point where they sometimes get things mixed up.

However, mayors are not condemned to impotence. They have important prerogatives when it comes to waste. And what is hunting, if not an activity aimed not only at killing living creatures, but also at scattering tons of waste in the countryside with guns, with complete impunity?

Because it’s urgent, we’re calling on mayors to adopt the draft decree to drastically limit this practice and take action to protect the environment. To support us in this initiative, please forward this draft bylaw to your mayor! And to raise the voice of animals even higher, sign our petition for a radical reform of hunting!

Underground badger hunting: new victories and new hearings!

Underground badger hunting: new victories and new hearings!
19.02.2024
Underground badger hunting: new victories and new hearings!
Hunting

The fight against the supplementary period of underground venery is a long-distance race. After securing more than 30 emergency victories last year, which saved 4,000 badgers, the courts are now overwhelmingly confirming the illegality of all these decrees. In two new annulment decisions, judges in Nantes (Vendée) and Amiens (Oise) ruled that digging up badgers at this time of year was quite simply illegal. But the battle is far from over: next hearings are scheduled for March 7 and 12, at 10 and 10.30 a.m. respectively, at the administrative courts of Limoges and Nancy, for the 2023 supplementary periods in the Haute-Vienne and Meuse departments.

Update April 2, 2024

Two new victories against badger digging! In Haute-Vienne, hundreds of badgers were due to be killed in the spring of 2023. After the emergency suspension of the prefect’s decision, AVES, ASPAS and One Voice have just obtained its definitive annulment! In Meuse, the court also overturned the decree, which this time we had challenged on our own. Judgment after judgment, justice confirms it: in addition to being cruel, the supplementary underground hunting period is illegal.

Everywhere it has been suspended as a matter of urgency, underground hunting is about to be declared illegal for good

Last summer, while hunters were sharpening their knives, shovels and pickaxes to go hunting for badgers in their burrows, we launched a large-scale campaign against badger digging. Because it’s a cruel practice that we documented by infiltrating the community, and because it leads to the killing of newborn badgers every year – which is illegal, as the Conseil d’Etat has reminded us – the courts we appealed to suspended it as a matter of urgency in over 30 departments. Nearly 4,000 individuals have been saved as a result!

And the victories continue. In two new rulings, judges in Nantes and Amiens have joined those in Caen, Clermont-Ferrand and Limoges and overturned the prefect’s decrees for the Vendée (year 2020) and the Oise (year 2023) departments.

For the Amiens judge, the situation is very clear: until they are emancipated, badgers are “young” within the meaning of the law, and “the hunting method used involves the killing of the parents and the destruction of the burrow, or even the accidental injury of a young badger by the dogs“.

New hearings and new appeals in prospect

Having obtained the suspension of the orders in Haute-Vienne and Meuse last spring, the administrative courts of Limoges and Nancy will rule definitively on these cases at the end of two hearings scheduled for March 7, 2024 at 10 a.m. and March 12, 2023 at 10:30 a.m. respectively. 

Despite all these decisions, we know that the prefects, still hand in hand with the hunters, will no doubt once again authorize massacres in many departments. Everywhere, we’ll be speaking out on behalf of these individuals, killed for the sole pleasure of a few people. To help them, support us and sign the petition to put an end to underground hunting!

Leghold traps claim a new victim: we file a complaint for Snooky

Leghold traps claim a new victim: we file a complaint for Snooky
16.02.2024
Leghold traps claim a new victim: we file a complaint for Snooky
Hunting

On January 31, 2024, in the town of Couëron, Loire-Atlantique, passers-by discovered a cat with his leg caught in a leg-hold trap, a cruel and non-selective device that has been banned since 1995. This is not the first time one of our companions has fallen victim to these outdated tools. And that’s without taking into account all the wild animals that are deliberately targeted. We have filed a complaint for Snooky.

This January 2024 could have ended with the usual outdoor walks and indoor meals with his family. But Snooky had the misfortune to wander into the wrong garden and stumble across a leghold trap that closed violently on his left front paw. As he struggled, he found himself hanging against a low wall overlooking the street, his bruised limb still trapped on the other side of the railings. Neighbors discovered him on the morning of Wednesday, January 31, thanks to his frantic mewing. How long had he been in distress, wounded in his flesh? His worried humans hadn’t seen him since Monday evening…

After he arrived  at the vet in a state of shock and hypothermia, X-rays also revealed a dislocation of the phalanges and a suspected tear in the poor feline’s brachial plexus. Placed on a drip, Snooky eventually warmed up. But his injuries were irreversible. Two weeks after being taken into care, he had to have his middle and ring fingers amputated.

Traps sometimes illegal, always barbaric

Just a year ago, it was Cooper who found himself caught between the sharp teeth of a leghold trap. At the same time, Mani was discovered in agony, almost losing a leg to a snare. However, the older, unregistered version of the former device has been banned throughout the European Union for almost thirty years. How much longer will the rules be trampled all over ? And how long before these cruel, non-selective traps disappear and cease to deliver their victims to hours of intolerable suffering from which they cannot escape? For cats and dogs like Cooper, Mani and Snooky, but also for all the wild animals knowingly martyred, these practices must stop.

We join Snooky’s family and the association L’Arche de Ninie et ses Amis, who called us for help, in lodging a complaint. Together, let’s continue to defend the animals fallen victim to hunting by calling for a radical reform of this immoral hobby.

Common tenrecs: against animals and justice, little arrangements between the prefecture and hunters

Common tenrecs: against animals and justice, little arrangements between the prefecture and hunters
15.02.2024
Common tenrecs: against animals and justice, little arrangements between the prefecture and hunters
Hunting

Every year, between fifty and one hundred thousand common tenrecs are hunted on Reunion Island. Although the administrative court in Saint-Denis issued an emergency injunction suspending this announced massacre before it even began, a new decree is due to be adopted to authorize it in spite of everything. In addition to contempt for the animals, there is contempt for justice. And for good reason: it would appear that it was not the prefect, but the hunters themselves who held the pen… One Voice is calling for mobilization to oppose the massacre and these methods!

Update on 21/02/2024

After launching the public consultation for a new draft decree authorizing the hunting of common tenrecs, the prefecture closed it prematurely. But the collusion between the prefect and the hunters is total and, from now on, assumed: the authors of the draft decree and the presentation note are still… the director of the hunters’ federation and her lawyer!

The only difference, and it’s a big one: if this new decree is adopted, hunters will be allowed to kill common tenrecs every day of the week, instead of three days previously. To say no to these methods and to the extension of the number of hunting days, take part in the consultation!

Decree suspended, thousands of common tenrecs saved

Already victims of large-scale poaching, common tenrecs are killed for several months each year. While their newborns are still in their burrows, hunters set their dogs after them. Those who don’t die directly are picked up and killed later. It’s a sad fate not unlike that suffered by badgers and foxes in France’s underground venery.

Because tradition will never justify the violence inflicted on animals, we are fully mobilized wherever animals are targeted in its name. In December 2023, the Saint-Denis administrative court ruled in our favor, annulling the 2022 decree a posteriori. On February 12, it confirmed its position: the procedure for adopting the decree for 2024 was more than dubious, and the use of dogs directly endangers the pups. A relief for these animals and their defenders, on the island and everywhere else.

Never better served than by oneself: at the meeting, the hunters write the regulations themselves!

But the respite was short-lived. On February 12, a new draft decree was already online on the prefecture’s website. On reading the attached documents, we were doubly stunned to discover that the draft decree and its presentation note seemed not to have been drafted by the State services, which are supposed to be the guarantors of the general interest, but by… the director of the departmental hunters’ federation and her lawyer! We immediately had this information noted by a bailiff and will be contesting this new decision by all available means.

This is a shameless way for the prefect to allow the slaughter of these animals and silence the voices of all Reunion Islanders who are opposed to these practices. You too can make your discontent known by taking part in the public consultation!