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Traditional hunting: the ministerial decrees by the Ministry of the Ecological Transition annulled by the State Council for the fourth consecutive year.

Traditional hunting: the ministerial decrees by the Ministry of the Ecological Transition annulled by the State Council for the fourth consecutive year.

Traditional hunting: the ministerial decrees by the Ministry of the Ecological Transition annulled by the State Council for the fourth consecutive year.
23.11.2022
Traditional hunting: the ministerial decrees by the Ministry of the Ecological Transition annulled by the State Council for the fourth consecutive year.
Hunting

Unsurprisingly, the State Council has annulled the 2021 ministerial decrees on traditional hunting which were already suspended in 2021, thus confirming their illegality. One Voice is pleased with this confirmation and that they stopped at nothing for the little birds affected by this cruel hunting, defended year after year by the LPO before judges of the highest French administrative jurisdiction.

The traditional hunting techniques concerned, snares, nets, and cages (traps in the form of collapsible nets and drop cages), have once again been ruled as non-selective and satisfactory alternatives exist. The decrees implemented in 2022 have, incidentally, already been urgently suspended.

Today’s victory leaves a bitter taste. When we think that these unjust authorisations have been issued despite opposing and repeated decisions (up to the Court of Justice of the European Union) and year upon year, by a Ministry of the “ecological transition”, it sends shivers down your spine. What does the future hold? Will the Ministry still disregard the State Council’s opinion, or will it finally respect the law? Muriel Arnal President of One Voice

We hope that 2022 will be the last year that we see the Ministry of Ecology, who are supposed to defend biodiversity and that which constitutes it, sign decrees authorising trapping and killing larks — and so many other little birds along the way — in this way.

What if animal defenders as a whole were not there to permanently defend animals against authorities who, in fact, break the law? How come the ministry in charge of representing animals is in fact the organiser of their killing?

We do not expect anything from the Ministry that is only ecological by name. We are preparing ourselves to counter their next decrees with our appeals which will deliver wildlife and birds to hunters whose only pleasure is destroying our heritage that is already so vulnerable due to global warming and the collapse of biodiversity. Muriel Arnal President of One Voice

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Together for abolition! On 19 and 20 November, around one hundred associations will be on the ground to support the abolition of bullfighting, supported by the bill voted on at the National Assembly on 24 November

More than 130 animal defence associations, including One Voice, support the bill for the abolition of bullfighting by Aymeric Caron. A national coordinated response is happening in more than forty towns.

Forced swimming: other approaches are possible

Forced swimming: other approaches are possible

Forced swimming: other approaches are possible
07.11.2022
Forced swimming: other approaches are possible
Animal testing

The Ministry of Research has approved electric shock and forced swimming procedures this year in France, while businesses worldwide are abandoning this largely criticised test that lobbies have trouble defending. Animals should not suffer for us, especially as substitution methods and non-experimental solutions exist to help people who are suffering.

The recent uses of the forced swimming test do not look to mimic human depression (something which this test does very badly), but to predict the efficacy of molecules on the depressive state. Despite quite poor recent data
in terms of the proportion of positive results for this prediction, we therefore cannot say that the forced swimming test is absolutely useless if it is carried out rigorously and with control of all of the variables that can influence the result. But the fact that a test using animals can be useful is not to say that it is justified.

Furthermore, as recently remarked by the NC3R (British centre mainly dedicated to alternatives for animal experimentation), effective molecules and pioneering routes could have been forgotten due to overconfidence in the results of this test.

In addition, other tests exist that are much less stressful for the animals, particularly in measuring their memory capacity to evaluate the effect of different molecules. But it is still the breeding of animals, caging them, and using them for our interests that is unacceptable.

Substitution methods

If we stick to ‘replacement’ as defined by French regulations, with the idea of aiming for the same short-term objectives and discovering the same experimental results without animals, the solutions are indeed very few but they exist and can be developed.

Cell culture research in this field does not allow us to estimate the behavioural effect of medications but is interesting in evaluating the biological effects which can be largely predictable concerning the efficacy of antidepressants. This is what was recently highlighted by the NC3R, by noting the predictive capacity already established in this field and the promising development of the amount of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) in human blood and neuronal cell cultures.

From a technical standpoint, “computational psychiatry” is developed over several years, which will undoubtedly quickly make it possible to study many aspects of psychiatric diseases without hurting anyone.

But there may be better ways to measure: favouring prevention and putting favourable conditions in place for effective psychotherapy.

Prevention and non-medical treatments

When it comes to prevention, priority should be given to funding work on the external factors of depression and chronic stress in order to reduce the number of people affected by depression brought on by unfit working conditions or by exposure to a harmful social, political, and economic environment. Subsidies are not willingly extended. The money that funds forced swimming tests and the suffering inflicted on these animals is money that will not be used for working on the prevention of depression[1].

In addition, in a report from a very recent French documentary, Franck Ramus (a researcher in cognitive sciences) highlighted the link between the high use of psychoactive drugs in France and the superiority of the university curriculum for psychology by approaches based on beliefs rather than on proof, which had already been highlighted during a conference held in 2013 on this subject. The public therefore found themselves exposed to a majority of psychologists and psychiatrists who use unsuitable tools to treat them. Instead of funding the use of animals to develop medicine further, we can better use this money to embark upon an urgent reform of teaching psychotherapy and putting in place public information campaigns aiming to guide them towards effective treatments.

Animals must not suffer for us

Rats, these wonderful creatures full of empathy, who laugh, who play, who think, who feel emotions as complex as regret, do not have to suffer for us.

And what we can say for certain today is that the 600 rats who have been approved by the Ministry of Research to be used for repeated electric shock and forced swimming tests will suffer. This is happening in 2022, in France.

Join us in asking the Ministry of Research to ban these tests.

On cruelty

Click on the text to tweet: Stop electric shocks and forced swimming for animals! Public powers should not authorise these cruel experiments @sup_recherche #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://ctt.ec/_h2fq+ via @onevoiceanimal

Click on the text to tweet: .@sup_recherche, France must commit, like laboratories abroad, to put an end to cruel forced swimming tests on mice and rats!
#StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://ctt.ec/UPW92+ via @onevoiceanimal

On alternatives

Click on the text to tweet: Making rats depressed with electric shocks will not give more effective treatments. Stop #AnimalTesting, sup_recherche ! #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting https://ctt.ec/iV6Un+ via @onevoiceanimal

Click on the text to tweet: Instead of torturing rats to produce yet more medications, train psychologists and psychiatrists with 21st century tools!
@sup_recherche #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://ctt.ec/omBL7+ via @onevoiceanimal

Click on the text to tweet: Stop electric shocks and forced swimming! More funding for in vitro methods! @sup_recherche #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://ctt.ec/c1dLo+ via @onevoiceanimal

[1] The reallocation of funds is not particularly simple and must be done on a political level for public funding, and by raising awareness of foundations and other organisations for private subsidies. But this reallocation seems largely necessary when we see the suffering that is generated by the current allocation of funding.

This article is the fourth in a series of five on forced swimming:

  1. Electric shocks and forced swimming in France in 2022
  2. Forced swimming: footage
  3. Forced swimming: the businesses moving forward and the industry that resists
  4. Forced swimming: other approaches are possible
  5. Forced swimming: a long-term battle (to come)

Translated from the French by Joely Justice