News Archive - Page 41 of 147

Arche de Noël: the animals finally rescued from hell!

Arche de Noël: the animals finally rescued from hell!
30.11.2023
Hérault
Arche de Noël: the animals finally rescued from hell!
Domestic animals

Since our investigation within Arche de Noël was released and a report on it was broadcast on TF1, witnesses were coming forward at a frantic pace, confirming what we already knew. Azzopardi’s terrible reputation precedes him, whether it be an individual, animal welfare professionals, or even departmental authorities. What happens in his illegal breeding farm was known about or anticipated by everyone for years. However, the man was able to stay here for more than forty years and continue his business off the back of abused animals. It is over. The animals were rescued on 30 November.

Four decades of trafficking. Dozens of complaints and classified reports. A rescue that was aborted five years ago. Eventually, our investigation and its broadcast on TF1 proved us right about the lack of action by public powers in Béziers. After slacking on this file for years, pushed by media pressure and our petition that gathered more than 17,000 signatures, they had no other choice than to acknowledge their own failings and to finally take responsibility.

The animals are saved

After several days of uncertainty, the animals’ rescue was finally ordered. Azzopardi, who yesterday was still parading around proudly on Facebook, announcing that he had filed a complaint for defamation and ranting about continuing his business without batting an eyelid, was caught off guard this morning with the arrival of law enforcement agencies and associations.

So much so that he took refuge in his house with a weapon. It is absolutely horrific at the site. Although we are relieved that all of the animals have finally been freed, for now, it is not certain that all of them will survive given their state of heath after years in this place of death. The first in situ findings are obviously appalling.

Our on-site partner, SOS Reptiles, recovered some snakes in a disastrous state. A royal python that was already deceased, a boa constrictor in a vivarium full of cockroaches, and also an American grass snake suffering from a huge swelling and whose future is unfortunately not guaranteed.

We are waiting to find out the exact and official number of animals that have been saved, but we are hoping that at least one hundred individuals will have been taken out of that hell: dogs, cats, birds, snakes, tortoises, rabbits…

Lie after lie, Azzopardi tried to save face by announcing that he was putting an end to his activities on his own initiative… helped a little by the authorities, themselves pressured by our action.

A serious failure of the legal system in Béziers

Our complaint, filed in February 2023, was sent by recorded mail to the prosecutor and also handed over to the police by our lawyer. Radio silence for three months. The agent who dealt with us, who was qualified and very motivated at the start, did not follow-up on any of our calls, until one day he ‘disappeared’: his telephone had been assigned to another police officer.

An additional complaint was filed in June with novel elements. But in July, we learnt that the USB sticks containing all of the video evidence and the attachments that had been provided for the first complaint had been “lost”. We then sent them copies. Then history repeated itself: total silence – our calls and messages were ignored.

And other organisations experienced the same thing before we did. Dozens of complaints and report forms were carried out over forty years by multiple local or national associations. From institutions’ side, nothing or very little has changed during this time and Azzopardi has been able to crack on for four decades, making dogs reproduce for money, killing off those who cause any problems for him, all while leaving the youngest in the throes of death and collecting animals for his personal pleasure. Activities that have nothing to do with those of actual rescue centres. How many innocent animals have died at the hands of this executioner?

Now that they have been saved, we will stop at nothing to finally get the person responsible ruled on and sentenced and, above all, for his breeding farm to be definitively closed without him ever again being able to keep animals.

If you have adopted/bought an animal from there, you can help us by filling in this form and by sending a witness statement to info@one-voice.fr.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Purchasing ammunition in tobacconist’s: smoking is bad, killing is (surely) better?!

Purchasing ammunition in tobacconist’s: smoking is bad, killing is (surely) better?!
28.11.2023
France
Purchasing ammunition in tobacconist’s: smoking is bad, killing is (surely) better?!
Wildlife

This government is definitely under hunters’ thumbs like none before, as One Voice has been saying repeatedly. After lowering the cost of the national licence and giving repeated gifts, and even though this hobby kills millions of animals every year and causes several deaths and hundreds of accidents among humans, the Ministry of the Interior certainly has nothing better to do than to authorise the sale of bullets and other cartridges by newsagents. After having bought a scratch card to “protect biodiversity”, you can then take a packet of expanding bullets to go on a massacre.

The very words of Willy Schraen, FNC President: Emmanuel Macron “has done more for French hunting than any of his predecessors”. And it is an understatement to say that between those protecting animals and those who want to kill them, the French President and his ministers have clearlyx chosen their side.

Tobacconist’s: the government’s secret weapon to protect biodiversity

In its “strategy” to protect nature, the State seems to have found a new essential participant: newsagents. A few weeks ago, we found out about the launch, with much fanfare, of a scratch card for biodiversity. Asking French people themselves to pay for protecting the environment and to also compensate for the lack of investment by authorities – what a great discovery!

These are undoubtedly the same enlightened minds who developed the latest proposal by the Ministry of the Interior: allowing shooters to buy their ammunition directly from tobacco shops. These are torture instruments: bullets formerly reserved for the army that are now legal, they are expanding projectiles that open up inside the animal, causing it unimaginable suffering… All of this will now be at the disposition at the corner shop where anyone can buy rolling papers, drink a small glass of red, and kill at the same time. But we have been reassured: according to the Ministry of the Interior, “from 1 January, tobacconist’s will be able to learn about the regulations on the sale of hunting cartridges in a few hours”…

Consequently, we have already launched a legal plea to obtain a ban on certain types of weapons and better safety for this practice; the government seems determined to persist in supporting the hunting world.

The FNC: an influential group pampered by authorities

Today, it is clear that fake propositions from the minister in charge of hunting safety, each more ridiculous than the next, were just an illusion to continue to support hunters at any cost.

They are firing on all cylinders and do not hesitate in rehashing their usual arguments to present themselves as the only ones to have something reasonable to say. The minutes from the FNC general meeting, published by a whistle-blower, are a telling illustration of this: allegations against “new right-thinking society” who are “afraid of their origins”, and a scientific analysis that would make palaeontologists hopping mad, when W. Schraen stated that it is “human beings who, with a desire to dominate the animal kingdom, at one time made us come down from the trees to chase after others quite simply to eat them”… A funny interpretation of existing knowledge.

Through coshing their arguments and whinging about compensation for damage caused by wild boars that will cost them too much – all while raising these same wild boars in their masses to kill them – they received their umpteenth favour: several million euros per year, at the taxpayer’s expense, to promote hunting… no, sorry – to protect the environment. On the menu: teaching children how to use a knife in schools, installing plastic nest boxes that are dangerous for birds… All with a complete lack of transparency, and we understand that the media has recently revealed the calamitous management of these funds and the more than dubious use of public money.

While 89% of French people believe that this deadly hobby poses safety issues (IPSOS/One Voice survey, October 2023), it is about time that the government finally listens to the majority’s voices! To help, sign our petition to demand a radical reform on hunting!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Animal testing: investigation from One Voice in Mauritius into long-tailed macaque breeding farms

Animal testing: investigation from One Voice in Mauritius into long-tailed macaque breeding farms
28.11.2023
Mauritius island
Animal testing: investigation from One Voice in Mauritius into long-tailed macaque breeding farms
Animal testing

The island of Mauritius is one of the main countries dealing in monkeys for animal testing. By infiltrating this secret environment, our investigators are able to bring back exclusive footage and witness statements on the scandalous practices.

There are seven breeding ‘farms’ set up on the island of Mauritius, as close as possible to the natural habitat of the primates that they sell for the global animal testing industry. Each year, Bio Culture, Noveprim, Biodia, Biosphere, Les Campeches Ltd, Cynologics, and Le Tamarinier send more than 10,000 long-tailed macaques to laboratories in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Spain, and… France. Within the European Union, our country is in fact one of the main importers of these primates that are actually classified as in danger of extinction on the IUCN’s red list of endangered species.

A risky infiltration

Officially, these monkey factories can be ‘visited’ if we rely, of course, on their management services that are used to presenting them in their best light. We preferred to go behind the scenes to observe the way they function as closely as possible and to unveil the daily reality for the animals that are held prisoner here. At the cost of an enormous risk, our investigators managed to infiltrate six of them. What they discovered confirms what we suspected, along with our partner Action for Primates who put their information together to prepare for this investigation: many monkeys are regularly caught in traps in the forest in order to feed the breeding farms with ‘fresh meat’ and maintain genetic diversity.

Captured in the wild

The information provided to our investigators by whistle-blowers who wish to remain anonymous is clear… Curled up behind the mesh of the nets, long-tailed macaques have often been imprisoned for several days before the trappers come to collect their traps from the depths of the jungle. Famished and thirsty, the adults and babies only have the strength to grasp hold of each other in a desperate gesture… And it is without the slightest resistance, terrorised, that they let themselves be violently caged in transport carriers. Humans mock their distress.

Put into quarantine

When they arrive at the breeding farms, the little monkeys are brutally taken out of the carriers. Grabbed by the tail and neck, their arms pinned against their backs, all of them are isolated in turn in cages that are just as minuscule as they are bleak. Their whining or resolute silence is met with laughter or indifference from the staff. Then quarantine begins… And this is just a taste of what is to come.

Killed unless they are good for breeding

Before long, the prisoners are tattooed with an identification number. They are also subjected to an array of tests to check their state of health. Those injured during the capture, or those who are infertile, sick, or have been affected by a simple skin condition are killed without batting an eyelid: they are just a piece of rubbish. As for the others, they are sent to the ‘enclosures’, where there are already dozens of other monkeys enclosed, to be used for breeding. We are showing their miserable living conditions where stress is palpable everywhere. Due to overcrowding in the cages, epidemics are rife, particularly of bovine tuberculosis. The employees then start the mass slaughters: up to 200 monkeys per day!

Babies for laboratories

Theoretically, the first generation babies escape testing in the European Union: subjecting F1 macaques to tests has been banned in the EU since November 2022. But in practice… hardly anyone worries about it and the labs even less so. In all cases, primates are condemned to being kept captive and suffering for their whole lives.

We already know – thanks to the documents we had access to and then to the evidence we have gathered regarding the Silabe platform, linked with the University of Strasbourg – that the little monkeys were exported in batches of a hundred in France at the young age of one and a half years, and this investigation has told us that they are torn from their mother’s arms from the age of 6-8 months to get them used to contact with humans early on and to be docile.

Impregnated as intended, they are then ‘ready’, whenever requested, to fulfil orders to be subjected to painful procedures in our country, in Europe, and across the Atlantic.

Finishing with this scandal!

This investigation follows our constant action to put an end to the use of macaques in laboratories. We have already made Air France put a stop to transporting them. We need to go further. Strengthened by our latest revelations, we are counting on public policy-makers to take responsibility and change the situation.

For years, MPs have expressed their concerns to the European Commission on the subject of trapping wild macaques in Mauritius. Others must follow their example and our leaders must not retreat from animal testing lobbies. They often hide behind a mask when they come forward to better impose their laws. For example, they often say they are ‘CNRS researchers’ rather than clearly stating that they are Gircor* representatives… Help us to call on the authorities to put an end to the importation, trade, and use of long-tailed macaques in France and in the European Union, sign our petition!

*Groupe Interprofessionnel de Réflexion et de Communication sur la Recherche [Interprofessional Focus and Communication Group for Research]

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

‘Monkeys Labs’: from condoned mistreatment, proven trafficking, and health risks

‘Monkeys Labs’: from condoned mistreatment, proven trafficking, and health risks
27.11.2023
Île Maurice
‘Monkeys Labs’: from condoned mistreatment, proven trafficking, and health risks
Animal testing

Violence, concrete enclosures, and minuscule cages. When hearing that everything is going well for laboratory suppliers, the footage from our investigation within one of the most significant ones seems surreal. However, they echo the recent arrest of a member of the Cambodian government involved in illegal trafficking – not to mention the permanent health risks linked with captivity. One Voice is asking for an end to these practices.

In Mauritius, beyond the restrictions linked to the evaluation of the environmental impact of the set-ups, a law passed in 2013 and reinforced in 2022 is supposed to protect animals against acts of cruelty. It specifically bans “tortur[ing] or otherwise treat[ing] an animal in such a manner as to subject it to distress, pain or suffering” and “keep[ing] or confin[ing] an animal in a cage or other similar structure which is too small to provide the animal with a reasonable opportunity for its natural movement”.

Some situations filmed by our investigators in 2023 at Noveprim directly contradict this legislative text.

Carte blanche and collusion

If truth be told, no legal obligations are imposed on the companies set up in Mauritius to respect regulations from importing countries. And they clearly do not mind. Even the most obvious cases of cruelty (such as the illegal breeding of 250 macaques in squalid conditions, discovered last spring) do not seem to result in any convictions.

As for exporting a primate to a French laboratory, they simply have to prove that they and their parents were bred in a cage. It is still necessary for this to be attested to – instead of only relying on sellers’ statements.

But motivating public powers to follow the law leaves much to be desired. So, last year, the director of the department of wildlife and biodiversity at the Cambodian government arrived in New York. For several years, he facilitated the illegal trafficking of captured long-tailed macaques – a species that is very popular with research teams, to the point that it is classified as ‘endangered’ by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Tuberculosis and mass massacres

And it is not over. While wild primates rarely suffer from serious infectious diseases, risk factors are increased in captivity. This concerns animals themselves, but also the human population via zoonotic diseases. This is how, recently, dangerous bacteria was found in the United States during a health check on monkeys coming (again) from Cambodia.

This very real danger explains why breeding farms often carry out diagnostics that involve injecting tuberculininto the eyelid and observing the potential swelling. According to an employee of the company, in the case of a positive result, Noveprim kills all of the individuals in the section concerned.

Let’s end this

It makes you wonder what Member States of the European Union are supposed to do to protect against this mistreatment and these massacres. Are the Mauritian and Vietnamese establishments that supply Francedoing as much as their Cambodian counterparts? Clearly, according to the One Voice investigation with contribution from Action for Primates, the answer is no.

This is why we are inviting you to sign our petition asking for a ban on capturing, the closure of breeding farms, and an end to testing on macaques.

Going further, you can consult our special report and consult the data given year after year and species by species on our dedicated website.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Because it is not only France: macaques from the island of Mauritius in the hands of European and American research

Because it is not only France: macaques from the island of Mauritius in the hands of European and American research
27.11.2023
Île Maurice
Because it is not only France: macaques from the island of Mauritius in the hands of European and American research
Animal testing

The trade of Mauritian macaques is not limited to France. All throughout the globe, laboratories import these animals, whether captured or bred in captivity, with the aim of subjecting them to painful and stressful tests. We have found traces of the shocking fate reserved for some of them among our neighbours and across the pond. We are asking for the closure of these primate breeding farms and an end to their use in testing.

The global establishment of these macaque sellers leaves no doubt. In the United States, the BioCulture group has its own importer, ‘BC US LLC’. In Europe, the point of contact for its counterpart, Noveprim, is the Spanish centre, Camarney… Trafficking that is facilitated by airline companies such as Hainan Airlines and EgyptAir, despite the commendable decision by Air France to stop taking part in this from June 2023.

Tests serving the market

Here like elsewhere, the individuals imported from the hold are regularly exploited for toxicology tests. With results rarely needing to be published (they mainly interest the bodies in charge of approving new products being put on the market), few scientific articles can be found that report the suffering that they are involved in.

A few traces of these experiments can still be found that generally involve administering a substance to monkeys, whether by making them drink it(1) or injecting them with it(2). Most often, repeated administrations are given for months(3) in order to measure the secondary painful and stressful effects, predicted or not, ‘at a repeated dose’. Be that as it may, the issue is still the same: slaughtering in the more or less short term, then organ sampling and analysis.

Contractual research organisations

The promoters of a product can appoint these regulatory procedures to ‘contractual research organisations’ (CROs) such as Covance in England, Aptuit in Italy, or Charles River in France and North America.

If these names do not mean anything to you, you might, however, know of, on the other side of the Rhine, the Laboratoire de Pharmacologie et de Toxicologie (LPT [Pharmacology and Toxicology Laboratory], which has now become ‘Provivo Biosciences’). Shocking footage was revealed in 2019 by Cruelty Free International, our British partner within the Cruelty Free Europe European Coalition for which One Voice is the French representative. Or even Vivotecnia, a Spanish CRO authorised to carry out operations despite evident mistreatment brought to light in 2020 by this same partner.

They are not goods

In aid of these types of clients, Noveprim can even test on site, in Mauritius, in order to produce macaques already equipped with biological parameter implants(4). Suffering that is contributed to by the deplorable conditions they are kept in and their treatment – and an additional product in the company’s catalogue.

Animals’ lives do not belong to us. We have to put an end to laboratories exploiting monkeys and for this, develop innovative and ethical research methods. You can sign the petition by One Voice to ask for the closure of these Mauritian breeding farms and a ban on testing on primates along with us.

Going further, you can consult our special report and consult the data given year after year and species by species on our dedicated website.

Accelera (Italy) 2023.
Novo Nordisk (Denmark) 2019.
Novo Nordisk (Denmark) 2022, Labcorp (United States) & Charles River (Canada) 2023.
Noveprim (Maurice) 2018.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Injections, inoculations, and intoxication: Mauritian macaques in French laboratories

Injections, inoculations, and intoxication: Mauritian macaques in French laboratories
27.11.2023
Île Maurice
Injections, inoculations, and intoxication: Mauritian macaques in French laboratories
Animal testing

Faced with the damning footage produced by our investigation within the Mauritian Noveprim company, we wanted to know what happens to the primates sold throughout the world by this business. The origin of macaques is sometimes indicated in scientific journals, which allows us to find out the tragic fate of many of those imported into France. We are asking for an end to capturing, breeding, and testing on primates

In a global database of publications that are freely accessible, other than a few results in North America or among our European neighbours, the name of the Noveprim breeding farm especially highlights research carried out in France.

While the industry generally grants the monkeys that it exploits with a name as well as their tattoo, this vague notion of identity disappears when the results obtained are published. Animals are therefore numbers, simple tools, sometimes listed in the same tables as viruses, antibodies, or even the software used.

A life of suffering

Numerous individuals instrumentalised in this way have had to endure varied ‘procedures’. This may be, at Sanofi(1), simple’ repeated blood tests, while other animals are subjected to ocular injections and are killed by GenSight and the Institut de la Vision to take their eyes(2). The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA: Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives) made it even worse by inflicting brain injuries at its MIRCen unit(3) and inoculating with serious diseases in its Biosafety level 3 (P3) laboratory(4).
Still at the CEA, NeuroSpin (which we know well for its repeated infractions of the regulations) immobilised three Mauritian monkeys under anaesthetic up to fifteen times each. After having injected microbubbles into their blood, the staff did an ultrasound of their head to try to facilitate the penetration of products into the brain(5).
The Ministry of Armed Forces recently confirmed that no experiment carried out on primates was led by their services since 2013; an article published in 2018(6) probably relates to one of its last uses of these animals. The armed forces here intoxicated eighteen macaques from Mauritius with a chemical weapon, the Russian VR nerve agent. Among them, four were dead in less than an hour, while the other, under treatment, endured hypersalivation, exhaustion, respiratory difficulties and convulsions for several hours before being put back… and being killed to analyse their tissue.

Let’s end with their exploitation

As shown by our investigation, animals are already suffering from captivity and brutal handling by employees of the Noveprim breeding farm. But for them, it is only the start of a life spent enduring stress and pain for the supposed benefit of another species that has decided that they are dominant.

To put an end to these practices, you can sign our petition asking for the closure of macaque breeding farms and an end to testing on primates.

Going further, you can consult our report on primates and animal testing and consult the data given year after year and species by species on our dedicated website.

Sanofi 2020a, 2020b.
GenSight 2021, Institut de la Vision 2023.
CEA (MIRCen) 2019.
CEA (IDMIT) 2021a, 2021b, 2022a, 2022b.
CEA (NeuroSpin) ) 2020.
Institut de Recherche Biomédicale des Armées (IRBA) 2018.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

‘Cyno Breeders’ – the Mauritian industry of capturing and breeding macaques

‘Cyno Breeders’ – the Mauritian industry of capturing and breeding macaques
27.11.2023
Île Maurice
‘Cyno Breeders’ – the Mauritian industry of capturing and breeding macaques
Animal testing

Among the names of macaque breeding farms in the Island of Mauritius, two names keep reoccurring: Noveprim and BioCulture. With their Mauritian counterparts, these two companies have formed the ‘Cyno Breeders Association’, dedicated to propaganda in favour of animal testing, for the financial interests of its members. But their lies pale in comparison to the footage that was only just reported by our investigators in 2023. We are asking that these establishments are closed down.

Noveprim, created in the 1980s, is today half-owned by the Charles River company, which guarantees them a share of the American market. In Europe, its revenue is guaranteed by its Spanish centre, Camarney, which has sold more than 30,000 long-tailed macaques since 2005.

When it comes to BioCulture, its shareholders are companies run by other entities, going back to the Griffiths family which was established in the 1980s. Recently, a joint venture was set up with an Indian laboratory that carried out tests on animals.

From propaganda to reality

These two giants in primate trade collaborate with other local breeders from the Cyno Breeders Association, who themselves are also looking to promote animal testing at any cost, even if they are using shameful propaganda methods.

On this association’s website, we read that its members “opt for ethical practices that adhere to strict regulations and guarantee the highest standards of welfare for monkeys”. Our investigation, at one of these sites and during a capturing session by Noveprim, contradicts this with its footage.

According to what we see in the videos, welfare would therefore consist of a concrete cage combined with metal wire with, best case, a few plastic tunnels and ladders whose colour hardly cheers up the surrounding gloominess and oppressing acoustics. Not to mention the health risks, mutilations, or even illegal trafficking.

The economy against animals

Unfortunately, according to the European Commission, “it is not possible to contemplate a realistic way of only using primates from autonomous colonies in the short or long term”.

In fact, this ‘realism’ is a deliberate choice to always favour economical and industrial aspects to the detriment of animal interests. Clearly, breeding animals who have never felt the soil and grass beneath their feet is unacceptable. But captive individuals have one less source of suffering at least – being captured.

For a peaceful and shared future

Last year, long-tailed macaques were declared to be in danger of extinction in South Asia. In Mauritius, the situation is less clear.

While we estimate that the Mauritian population was around 30,000 individuals forty years ago, there were no more than 8000 in 2009, and no reliable data has been published since. Unfortunately, recent projects that attempt to assess how many of them there are on the island are done in collaboration with those who capture them… logical.

We would like massive and urgent funding for research methods without animals in order to facilitate the end of animal testing.

To help to move forward in this way, you can sign our petition asking for the closure of breeding farms and an end to capturing Mauritian macaques destined for laboratories.

Going further, you can consult our report on primates and animal testing and consult the data given year after year and species by species on our dedicated website.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Melles: the hunting season for goats is open!

Melles: the hunting season for goats is open!
23.11.2023
Haute-Garonne
Melles: the hunting season for goats is open!
Wildlife

It is well known: goats are particularly destructive animals who represent a huge danger for public safety. With this in mind, the Melles (31) mayor has chosen a radical (and illegal) solution: to authorise hunters to kill a group of goats that have been abandoned in the hills of the village. And this is even despite the existence of numerous alternatives. Of course, it is always the same individuals who pay the price: animals. We are attacking this interim decree before the Toulouse Administrative Tribunal. The hearing is on 28 November 2023 at 10am.

Photo: Melles Collectif Preservons Melles with their kind permission.

Goats: ferocious animals

A few weeks ago, the mayor from a town in the Alpes-Maritimes department received some chilling information: four goats had the bad idea of… dropping a few stones onto the tennis courts. Without a second thought, the councillor authorised for them to be killed. The result: 4 animals were killed. We have condemned this situation but, clearly, the goats are easy to blame. In Melles, there are almost one hundred of them whose slaughter has been ordered, for ridiculous reasons.

The law allows the mayor to take measures to find a solution for the presence of “ferocious and destructive” animals. It is well known that goats are bloodthirsty animals who cause very significant damage throughout France. It is difficult to remain serious faced with such absurdity…

A doubly illegal massacre

Why not look for alternatives? Let’s remember that the mayor has significant power at their disposal to manage the presence of stray animals. If we are to believe the decree, there is no possible solution because the goats would move into an area that is not accessible to vehicles. And this even though they are actually accused of causing damage… to vehicles. How can anyone understand this?

Once again, the reality is very far from what is put forward by the town. It is about nothing more or less than offering easy targets to hunters. Under normal circumstances, administrative battles are entrusted to “wildlife control officers”, the State’s combat arms against animals. But, in Melles, the massacre is entrusted to local shooters. The cherry on the cake: this operation will happen… throughout the whole season. They have to make the pleasure last.

For dozens of goats who are at the point of becoming the umpteenth victims of this cruel hobby, and even though 60% of French people consider hunting to be ineffective in fighting against supposed damage caused by animals, we are attacking this decree urgently before the Toulouse Administrative Tribunal, where we will give them a voice during a hearing on 28 November at 10am.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Let’s rally for the wolves: we are participating in great numbers in the ministry’s public consultations!

Let’s rally for the wolves: we are participating in great numbers in the ministry’s public consultations!
23.11.2023
France
Let’s rally for the wolves: we are participating in great numbers in the ministry’s public consultations!
Wildlife

While the current National Action Plan (NAP) for wolves and farming activities will come to end on 31 December, a new plan and draft decree aiming to strengthen the (already formidable) use of lethal shots is currently subject to public consultation. Currently, the aim is to ensure the effective protection of a species but here, contrary to appearances, it is quite the opposite that is being sought. Given the media coverage of the agricultural lobby and the outing of many politicians who show little concern for animals’ fate, we are not expecting much, but still… Help us to advance the fight by responding to these consultations before 7 December 2023.

Wolves are collateral victims of intensive farming practices. Demonised, they are killed in their masses under the pretext of legal shots in the name of protecting herds of animals destined for the abattoir. Unfortunately, wolves are little-known animals who wrongly suffer from a bad reputation. They are, however, sensitive and intelligent, and their ways of life are ultimately similar to our own: they are made up of real families, where each of them has a well-defined function in the wolf cubs’ upbringing. As for their role for such a fragile biodiversity, this no longer needs to be demonstrated! This does not prevent the government from taking ever more unfavourable measures against them, due to the power of the hunting lobbies and industrial agriculture.

Openly anti-wolf projects

The contents of the first consultation surpassed our worst predictions… The plan was void of any substance to the benefit of the sacrosanct interests of farmers. In fact, the document displays unfailing support for existing farming practices without ever questioning their negative consequences. The biggest losers here are clearly the wolves. Their protection is no longer at the heart of the project, in fact quite the opposite: they are appointed as targets to be slaughtered.

The second consultation relates to a draft decree whose purpose is nothing more or less than to reinforce the use of lethal shots. On the program: an increase in the number of shooters, a generalisation of the possibility of using thermal cameras to better target wolves, an end of the obligation to shine a light on them before shooting, the end of the suspension of shooting authorisations when an individual is killed… In short, the draft decree amounts to confirming the possibility of massacring representatives of a protected species.

Unbearable and senseless persecution

The two projects submitted to the consultation have received unfavourable opinions from the CNPN [Conseil national de la protection de la nature – French National Council for the Conservation of Nature]. Despite all of this, the government, committed to defending the worst agricultural interests, remains deaf to warnings from scientists and nature protection associations who recommend not killing wolves.

No matter how unbalanced the game is and how difficult victories are to come by, we will continue to fight for wolves. For more information on who they are and their situation, we invite you to consult our report. We need your support in this fight. This is why we are offering you, below, a ‘toolbox’ that will allow you to participate in the consultation up until 7 December 2023 and therefore to defend wolves.

TO SAY NO TO THE NAP PROJECT, CLICK HERE :

Protecting wolves is not addressed in the project:

No protection aims for wolves appears in the project even though the species is classified as ‘vulnerable’ in France.
Nothing is planned to guarantee that the wolf population will do well in the future.
The NAP project even goes so far as to recognise the need to increase the use of lethal shots. It is hard to imagine anything less protective than this.
As noted by the CNPN, continuing shots, including during the reproduction period, is contrary to the very essence of the status of a protected species.

The NAP project favours farming to the detriment of wolves:

It reverses the logic of the NAP, supposed to be protective, and echoes the anti-wolf discontent of the farmers it defends.
It maintains the unjustified principle of non-protectability of cow herds: a farmer can let his cow herd wander without any supervision or protection, then come and demand authorisation to kill wolves.

The NAP project does not insist enough on the protection of herds with non-lethal methods:

No assessment/feedback on herd protection measures has been established.
The NAP does not bother to strengthen checking measures on the implementation of herd protection measures.

The NAP project disregards the positive impacts of wolves within the ecosystem and does not even address them:

Wolves, however, continue to maintain a balance in natural environments by limiting the development of deer and wild boar populations.
Wolves assist biodiversity.

TO SAY NO TO THE DRAFT DECREE, CLICK HERE :

The draft decree reinforces the use of lethal shots to the detriment of alternative solutions:

The draft decree includes a series of measures intended to ensure that shots kill even more effectively.
This project indirectly paves the way for an unacceptable increase in the upper limits for killing wolves, a protected species.
The draft decree contravenes the logic of “protected species” exemptions which must normally remain exceptional and a last resort.

The draft decree keeps ‘test shots’:

‘Test shots’ – which are similar to real wolf hunts – are part of the project. The government does not even intend to take even a small step in favour of wolves by ending this possibility.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Hunting birds by crushing them under a stone: is it the end for stone traps?

Hunting birds by crushing them under a stone: is it the end for stone traps?
22.11.2023
France
Hunting birds by crushing them under a stone: is it the end for stone traps?
Wildlife

If there is one thing that characterises hunters, it is their ability to come up with yet more cruel ways of killing animals. Under the cover of ‘tradition’, they use techniques each more violent than the next that cause intense suffering for field larks, thrushes, lapwings, and all other bird species used as targets here. Our fight against these practices from a bygone era is moving forward: on 23 November 2023 at 9:30am, the State Council will decide on our request to definitely annul the use of s tone traps in Aveyron and Lozère.

After glue, cages, nets, and decoys, the moment of truth has come for stone traps

For thrushes in Lozère and Aveyron, stone traps are synonymous with suffering and death. They are small bird traps that spring into action when the bird touches the bait: a stone then falls on it, giving it no chance. When the bird is not killed instantly, it suffers fractures which will condemn it and stop it from flying away. The trapper can then come and get it to finish it off, most often by hand.

Since 2018, we have been leading a relentless fight against all of these types of hunting. While stone traps in Ardennes and glue in the south-west have definitively been banned by the State Council and the decrees authorising cages and nets have been urgently suspended, judges have not yet ruled on stone traps. Beyond their barbaric character, this practice is clearly illegal, as we have been saying for years.

To what point will the government support traditional hunting against birds?

So why continue to persist in authorising these sadistic tools that concern only a handful of people but cause so much suffering to birds? Defending traditions is easy to blame! In reality, it is nothing more or less than satisfying the demands of a lobby. And it is an understatement to say that the current government is giving crazy amounts of energy to protecting this minority who take pleasure in killing.

Under the cover of ‘scientific experimentation’, they also recently allowed the capture of several thousand birds with nets, cages, and stone traps, which is in fact frowned upon by the State Council! Our pleas allowed the suspension of three of the five decrees and it is a safe bet that the government will try its luck again next year in the event that the decrees authorising cages and nets are not definitively cancelled by the State Council by then.

But if the legal system sticks to its consistent position, we are hopeful that stone traps, like trapping and glue hunting, will soon be nothing more than a distant memory for animals. And if,like 70% of French people, you believe that hunting is a cruel practice, sign our petition for a radical reform of it!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice