An advantageous decision for 160 ibex in Bargy!

An advantageous decision for 160 ibex in Bargy!
15.06.2023
An advantageous decision for 160 ibex in Bargy!
Wildlife

The Grenoble Administrative Tribunal has finally just published its ruling, 9 days after the 6 June hearing: we have, alongside our partners, obtained an urgent suspension on the Haute-Savoie Prefectural decree! Shooting ibex without prior health testing can no longer be carried out. The 160 ibex who would have been slaughtered ‘on sight’ (at the rate of 20 per year until 2030) in the Bargy mountain ranges without our action will finally have their lives saved. An advantageous decision that confirms the futility of undistinguished slaughtering without prior testing.

For years, under pressure from a few farmers and local elected representatives, the Haute-Savoie Prefect has authorised the slaughter of ibex on the sly without prior announcement, arguing that this would curb bovine brucellosis. However, no testing was carried out ahead of time to verify whether the ibex were actually carriers of this disease. Tests were carried out after they had been killed. The result: in 2022, out of the 61 ibex killed, only 3 of them were unwell.

Together with Animal Cross, the French Association for the Protection of Wild Animals, AVES France, France Nature Environnement Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, FNE Haute-Savoie, and the French League for the Protection of Birds [LPO] we have therefore asked the Grenoble Administrative Tribunal to urgently suspend the Haute-Savoie Prefect’s decree of 17 March 2022 that authorised a massacre, even though the ibex species is supposed to be protected!

Wild animals are disappearing before our very eyes and the State still infringes on their protection

This year, the prefecture made various changes with relation to the Prefectural decrees of 2019 and 2022 that we have also had suspended. The outcome was therefore not known in advance.

During the hearing, the urgent applications judge put forward the complexity and the technical nature of the case file. On this occasion, there was a verbal sparring match lasting more than two hours between us and the Prefecture. Our lawyer, from the Thouy Avocats office, valiantly defended the ibex and responded argument by argument to the nonsense put forward by prefecture officials.

A rational decision in favour of ibex

We are therefore more than relieved to state once again that the Grenoble Administrative Tribunal has made a decision in favour of animals. The magistrate also relied on the opinion of the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES) who highlighted the “now very low” rate of seroprevalence as well as the benefits of regularly testing animals. In other words: testing then euthanising condemned individuals with a view to relieving them of the disease, not shooting them in a heap and noting it later…

For now, shooting without prior health testing can no longer be practised in Haute-Savoie. A well-deserved respite once again for these fine climbers that are so vulnerable.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Animals classified as species likely to cause damage: hunters’ black list

Animals classified as species likely to cause damage: hunters’ black list
15.06.2023
Animals classified as species likely to cause damage: hunters’ black list
Wildlife

They were considered as ‘pests’. Nowadays they are a ‘species likely to cause damage’. Grouped under this label, as unfair as it is scandalous, foxes, martens, jays, and many other animals trying to survive in our threatened natural spaces are on death row. We will not let it happen.

A massacre is brewing in the hushed prefecture corridors. From the end of the summer, a new ministerial decree will come into force. A long black and white list of those condemned as a species likely to cause damage will be written in each department in France. With this law, numerous animals will be hunted down, trapped, and continuously exterminated all year long, outside of the periods that have already been authorised. This classification, concocted every three years by trappers, wolf hunters, and State representatives, is nothing but an outright extension of the right to kill being granted to hunters during the ‘normal’ opening season for hunting.

Species likely to cause damage: environmental nonsense

The term ‘pest’, toned down in the French with the use of an acronym [ESOD: Espèces Susceptibles d’Occasionner des Dégâts], is nonsense. In the wild, good and evil do not exist. And biodiversity, to be in a good state, needs everyone. Every animal has its place here. In one year, a single fox can eat between 3900 and 6300 rodents, which are lovers of agricultural crops. Foxes are health agents and also prevent the propagation of Lyme disease, carried by ticks. Yes, foxes play the role of a natural regulator, much more respectful of the environment than the spreading of polluting chemical products.

A death sentence played out in advance

But the real aim of this abominable list is to please the hunting lobby. They are involved at all stages of its development. Given by prefects at the Ministry of the Ecological Transition, the classification as a species likely to cause damage firstly passes through each Departmental Commission for Hunting and Wildlife, which gives its opinion or makes its own classification requests. What about animal welfare associations? Scientific opinions? Checks on the ground? There is nothing to support the validity of this arbitrary list, established on a simple declaration. The animals therefore have no one to defend them. No chance of getting out alive. Their fate is played out in advance.

We are fighting, department by department

To counter this decree, we have already been working for months on end. Legal experts dedicated to the issue are again contacting prefectures every day to obtain documents. As usual, administrations are dragging things out or not even responding. We are therefore forced to refer to the Committee for Access to Administrative Documents [Commission d’Accès aux Documents Administratifs (CADA)]. We know these time-consuming proceedings well. But we are belligerent. Each document received is analysed. We are checking every loophole, every inconsistency. To implement a counter-attack, we have also called on naturalists and we are relying on scientific studies and investigating on site, alongside our contacts on the ground.

‘Pests’, as they call them, are living, sensitive, intelligent beings. They all have their place within already weakened ecosystems. Do they have to perish, shot at point-blank range or trapped in vile cages, strangled, mutilated, in a state of unbearable stress? We oppose this with all our power.

participate in the public consultation

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Peace for badgers this summer in fourteen departments!

Peace for badgers this summer in fourteen departments!
15.06.2023
Peace for badgers this summer in fourteen departments!
Wildlife

This year, in fourteen departments, badgers and their families will be left in peace in spring and summer. The decisions returned by administrative tribunals have just confirmed the arguments that we have been putting forward for years and have opened new perspectives in the fight to abolish underground hunting with hounds. Although a few judges still refuse to state the illegality of this type of hunting as being among one of the cruellest, the movement set in motion can only grow in the months and years to come.

Unprecedented for badgers and their cubs!

For several weeks, there have been a flurry of victories for badgers! In eighteen departments, we have attacked the opening of additional periods for underground hunting with hounds in spring and summer before the courts. The most recent suspensions to date: in Aube and Meuse, and in Loiret and Eure-et-Loir, where judges have swept away hunters’ and prefectures’ arguments.

These are added to the ten departments where the tribunals have said stop. Yes, badger cubs are dependant on their parents at this time of the year! Yes, underground hunting with hounds will inevitably lead to the young being killed if it is authorised in spring and summer in addition to the season when it is already allowed!

The Amiens Tribunal was not mistaken when qualifying this fatal hobby as ‘blind hunting’. And some jurisdictions have gone even further. The Poitiers Tribunal has also confirmed that which we have been stating for a long time: badgers must be considered as ‘young’ for quite some time, until they reach sexual maturity, and not, as stated by Prefectures whose laws are often blown up by hunting federations, until they are weaned (because it is only food!).

Thanks to the administrative proceedings urgently filed and pleaded, almost three thousand individuals will have their lives saved in the months to come. The young can grow peacefully without the fear of hunters’ shovels, guns, and knives.

… and a few defeats that raise questions

In Lyon (for the Rhône and Loire decrees), Bordeaux (Lot-et-Garonne), and Nantes (Vendée), urgent applications judges have decided to choose to take the opposite position to their colleagues in Limoges, Pau, Toulouse, Clermont-Ferrand, Caen, Amiens, Châlons-en-Champagne, and Nancy, however. And their decisions are (sadly) full of lessons.

For Vendée, the Nantes Administrative Tribunal indicated to us that for them, hunting with hounds does not pose a problem with regard to animal suffering because hunters would use ‘non-invasive pliers’ (as if that changes anything about the disastrous outcome of such a hunt) and, the cherry on the cake, that they can decide not to kill the animals that they have dragged out of the setts! All while admitting that those who will not benefit from this preferential treatment could be killed with a bladed weapon. Who could understand this?

When it comes to the Bordeaux Tribunal’s decision for Lot-et-Garonne, they surprised us because it looked exactly the same as the one returned a few days before by the Lyon one… Of course: the document header was that of the Lyon Administrative Tribunal! Corrected a few days later, this copy and paste nevertheless remains very concerning regarding the way in which rejection decisions are made by judges, given that they are not even written on a case-by-case basis.

Our fight for badgers is far from over

With FNE, the LPO, and Animal Cross, we have attacked Savoie’s decree: the hearing is on 16 June at 9:30am at the Grenoble Administrative Tribunal.
For Haute-Loire, AVES is joining this coalition and the hearing will take place on 20 June at 9:30am in Clermont-Ferrand.
For Aisne, along with AVES once again, we will defend the badgers on 16 June at 9:30am in Amiens.
Finally, we will be present alone in Dijon on 23 June at 2:15pm for Saône-et-Loire.

With a view to protecting badgers and for a ban on underground hunting with hounds thanks to a radical reform on hunting (progress that you can support by signing our petitions), we will continue to fight on local, national, and international levels.

With your help, we will pursue our legal attack as completely and thoroughly as necessary. Thanks to your support, we will not let it happen and we will fight until the end for badgers!

I support One Voice’s fight for badgers

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

One Voice continues its fight against bear scaring: hearing on 16 June 2023 at the State Council

One Voice continues its fight against bear scaring: hearing on 16 June 2023 at the State Council
15.06.2023
One Voice continues its fight against bear scaring: hearing on 16 June 2023 at the State Council
Wildlife

Off the back of a grand slam that we won last year against prefectural decrees authorising bear scaring in the Pyrenees, we will be at the State Council on 16 June at 2pm to ask for the cancellation of the ministerial decree of 20 June 2022 that authorises the implementation of such measures on a departmental level.

Photo: Collectif Hope

In August 2022, we were successful in getting all of the decrees set by the Ariège Prefecture to authorise scaring shots against brown bears, who are trying to somehow to survive in the Pyrenees, suspended, despite constant threats of poaching. To have the illegality of these laws recognised at the source, we have also attacked the one which they all stem from: the ministerial decree of 20 June 2022.

Violent measures cancelled more and more often

On 16 June 2023 at the hearing, we will ask for the cancellation of this decree before the State Council. Seeing as we managed to get the 2019 and 2020 ones partially cancelled, and also the one of 31 May 2021 to which it is similar, there is good reason for this. These publications allow prefectures to authorise sound effect shots that are very violent for these animals that are few in number in our mountains. For eight long months, bears are at the mercy of these detonations that push them out of their territory, can inflict auditory injuries, and risk separating the mothers from their young… if they have not already had their pregnancy terminated by the stress caused by this constant harassment.

Persecution from the ministry that is supposed to protect them must stop

In recent years, the legal system has proven us right by declaring laws attacking bears as illegal one after the other. While judges have started being sensitive to our arguments, the Ministry of the Ecological Transition itself blindly pursues its persecution policy against ursine populations in our country.

Our rallying for these animals remains more relevant than ever. We hope that the State Council will send another strong signal against these absurd scares by cancelling the 2022 ministerial decree in turn, then the one of 4 May 2023, which has not been urgently suspended despite our request but which could still be declared illegal.

To protect bears from shots threatening them relentlessly, we will face the Ministry at the State Council on 16 June at 2pm.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Hunting during lockdown: special privileges for hunters were illegal

Hunting during lockdown: special privileges for hunters were illegal
15.06.2023
Hunting during lockdown: special privileges for hunters were illegal
Wildlife

During lockdown, the country came to a halt, but special privileges for hunters did not stop. Throughout the long months, even in the most isolated places, it was impossible to leave the house without proof as to why. But in several departments, prefects agreed to exemptions for hunters so that they could devote themselves to their ‘hobby’ despite health restrictions. The Nantes Administrative Tribunal has just ruled in One Voice’s favour against these authorisations, which were actually illegal, in Maine-et-Loire and Loire-Atlantique.

In 2021, to cope with the COVID-19 epidemic, authorities declared a generalised re-lockdown throughout the country. For several weeks, those living in towns gradually rediscovered birdsong. Although health restrictions may have been a guarantee of peace for animals in urban areas since the first lockdown, those in our countrysides have not had a moment of respite
on their side. While the decree of 29 October 2020 banned “gatherings, meetings, or activities” of more than six people, prefects from numerous departments thus issued decrees to authorise hunting despite all of this. And hunters, disgruntled that we have put a spanner in the works, has even had us attacked by the legal system!

Lockdown: a bargain to (illegally) authorise hunting

In Loire-Atlantique, seven species are classified as ‘likely to cause damage’. They can be trapped all year round and killed with guns outside of the hunting season, until 31 March or even until 10 June. In Maine-et-Loire, wood pigeons were also part of this macabre list. Pursued everywhere, for as long as possible, such is the sad fate of animals arbitrarily declared as ‘pests’.

As if this was not enough, prefects in these two departments took advantage of health restrictions to allow hunters to put these animals to death with time limit, even beyond 10 June! The reason cited? As always, damage. And, as always, there is not a shred of evidence of this so-called damage.

They did not stop there. In Loire-Atlantique, the Prefect has gone further and has even ordered great cormorants to be killed. They are a protected species? Never mind! In any case, by the time the courts decide, the animals would long be dead. And in fact, that is what happened.

Animals who should never have been slaughtered

The killing of these individuals was illegal; as the court put it bluntly: “the administration has not produced any evidence to establish that these species would be likely to cause damage in autumn 2020” to justify them being killed. New proof, if any is needed, of the totally grotesque character of the designation of animals that are so-called ‘pests’.

On the subject of great cormorants, the court was even more harsh: not only did the Prefect absolutely not show why killing them would be necessary, but he did not provide a shred of proof of the reality of this damage.

These cancellations have left a bitter taste since they were imposed several years after the killing of these animals. But today it is undisputable: foxes, beech martens, Mustelidae, rooks, carrion crows, Eurasian magpies, starlings, wood pigeons, and great cormorants from these departments should never have been killed during this period. We were right to rebel against these abusive authorisations and to fight until the end to bring them justice.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice