The wolf population is in decline in France: One Voice condemns this predictable massacre.

Instructions for public consultation on species likely to cause damage: how to oppose the ministerial draft decree in concrete terms

Instructions for public consultation on species likely to cause damage: how to oppose the ministerial draft decree in concrete terms
22.06.2023
Instructions for public consultation on species likely to cause damage: how to oppose the ministerial draft decree in concrete terms
Wildlife

From 15 June to 6 July, citizens are invited to give their opinion on the ministerial draft decree that will set which animals are considered as ‘species likely to cause damage’ and are victims of merciless hunting year-long for the next three years. A cruel list with no foundation – since the so-called damage is declarative and either little or badly verified – which we are helping you to oppose along with us.

Updated every three years, the law setting the periods for and ways of killing animals classified as species likely to cause damage must in principle respond to specific requirements. It should also, whether protecting public health and safety or flora and fauna, prevent significant damage to agricultural, forestry, and aquacultural activities or any other kind of property. These claims, which we have particularly seen when coming to the aid of crows and ravens in Jura, are rarely implemented precisely by prefectures, which seem much quicker to please hunters than to be demanding on the reality of the problems that they put forward… Fortunately, there are many arguments to defend these blindly condemned animals against these destructive desires.

In the public consultation, you will find the draft decree, which specifies the animals targeted in each department in the appendix. Just below the link to download this decree, you can “leave a comment”. You can decide, for example, only to express yourself regarding animals in the department you live in, which will give weight to your participation.

Below we have given you some information to express your opposition to this classification. Of course, we believe that all animals have an intrinsic value that must not be compared with any human interests. But we are obliged to adapt our argument to the situation, at the risk of not being heard. Note: any copy and pasting will not be taken into account and it is therefore essential that you reformulate the arguments that you choose into your own words.

Animals are necessary for biodiversity

Not only do the individuals that the authorities want to hunt down have intrinsic value, but they are also intelligent and capable of experiencing suffering, as well as being essential to the environment, which the draft decree absolutely does not take into account, choosing to forget about their positive impact which is not insignificant.

By contributing to the regulation of the number of small rodents, foxes do us a lot more of a service than you may think. Simply by being present, they limit the movement of mice and other small rodents, which, by remaining at the entrance to their burrows, are less of a risk of transmitting Lyme disease to humans. But foxes are also beneficial to crops. By reducing the number of voles, they contain the damage caused in fields and thus the use of pesticides, which are harmful to ecosystems.

Rooks, carrion crows, Eurasian jays, and Eurasian magpies promote the dispersal of the grains that they eat and maintain the wild flora. Eurasian jays and Eurasian magpies even play a central role in forest renewal by supporting the development of oak and pine trees, while rooks and carrion crows protect crops from certain destructive insects whose larvae they eat.

Unnecessary or even counter productive measures

Many scientists agree in saying that mass slaughtering, which we will never accept no matter what the reason may be, does nothing to protect human interests.

We know that killing foxes to try to protect against diseases that are transmissible to humans and breeding animals to be sent to the abattoir is completely delusional. We can cite the Luxembourg case, which took foxes off the list of huntable species in 2015 and saw the number of cases of alveolar echinococcosis go from 40% down to 25% according to biologist Frédéric Jiguet. Weasels, martens, and stone martens have no chance of transmitting diseases to humans.

Birds classified as species likely to cause damage, in particular rooks, carrion crows, and starlings, are very intelligent and capable of implementing reproduction or emigration strategies to compensate for the loss of individuals that succumb. Suffice to say that the only ones to benefit from their death are those who take pleasure in slaughtering them with guns…

Along with us, ask for these animals to be taken off the list of species likely to cause damage and for the implementation of true alternative solutions to protect agricultural and other types of exploitation. If you are unable to post your comment on the Ministry’s site, as many people have reported to us, almost certainly due to the page being overcrowded, we recommend that you register to post it later. We are counting on you!

Participate in the public consultation

In concrete terms

GENERALLY:

• animals are sensitive and sentient beings;
• the positive impact of these animals, just as good for ecosystems as they are for human activity, is absolutely not taken into consideration by the draft decree submitted for consultation;
• it is not shown that the regulation of these species’ populations has a positive impact on protected interests by classifying them as species likely to cause damage: on the contrary, the assessment is negative or even counter productive;
• damage can be avoided by implementing true alternative solutions, such as filling in open holes in fences and coops, or combining several scaring methods in fields;
• compilations of damage rely on a uniquely declarative biased model (declarations come from farmers and are often collected by hunters or trappers) which is not subject to any checks by the State.

THE POSITIVE IMPACT OF THESE SPECIES:

Foxes and small carnivorous mammals:

• weasels, martens and stone martens: they contribute to the regulation of the number of small rodents that destroy crops – voles in particular – and must be considered as allies rather than enemies;
• They curb the spread of Lyme disease: when there are predators, small rodents, who are vectors for the transmission of the disease, move less and stay closer to their burrows, thus lowering the risk of transmitting the disease.
• weasels, martens and stone martens and public safety/health: weasels, martens, and stone martens do not pose a risk for human health given that these species are unlikely to transmit diseases/bacteria that they harbour to human beings.
• foxes and public safety/health: specialists of this species who are interested in the issue of zoonotic diseases agree that slaughtering foxes due to the diseases that they could transmit to humans and to farm animals is scientifically unjustified. As shown by the Luxembourg case, following foxes being taken off the list of huntable species in 2015, it saw the number of cases of echinococcosis contaminations go from 40% down to 25% according to biologist Frédéric Jiguet.

Finally, particular emphasis should be placed on foxes’ role in regulating small rodents due to the majority (almost exclusively in some cases) of their diet being made up of voles whose ‘proliferations’ are often seen. Sparing the lives of foxes also avoids having to battle with chemicals to combat voles in fields.

Birds: 4 corvids and common starlings:

The regulation of birds classified as species likely to cause damage is portrayed by many scientists as unnecessary or even counter productive. It is currently accepted that some species (in particular rooks, carrion crows, starlings) compensate for the losses in their populations linked to regulation with reproduction or emigration strategies.

• corvids: rooks, carrion crows, Eurasian jays, and Eurasian magpies: corvids’ diets are mainly composed of grains. Thus, they play a fundamental role in grain dispersion of wild flora.
• rooks and carrion crows: they play the role of ‘cleaner’ for dead animals (or those too weak or sick to survive in the wild) and also have a beneficial role for insects that destroy crops as they eat their larvae.
• Eurasian jays and Eurasian magpies: these two species play a key role in the natural renewal of forests, since they have an impact on the dissemination and development of oak and pine trees.

Participate in the public consultation

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

The courts have recognised that ravens and crows in Jura were illegally massacred in summer 2022

The courts have recognised that ravens and crows in Jura were illegally massacred in summer 2022
21.06.2023
The courts have recognised that ravens and crows in Jura were illegally massacred in summer 2022
Wildlife

On 13 June, the Besançon Administrative Tribunal ruled in One Voice’s favour by cancelling the prefectural decree of 24 March 2022 allowing the trapping and killing of carrion crows and rooks in Jura up to 31 July. The birds massacred during this time were done so illegally. Strengthened by this decision going in our favour, we will continue to fight for them as for all animals classified as species likely to cause damage.

In March 2022, when the Jura Prefecture once again authorised the unlimited trapping and killing of carrion crows and rooks living in their area in accordance with them being classified as a species likely to cause damage, we attacked this decision immediately. Our request for an urgent suspension was refused, condemning these birds to be killed relentlessly for an additional four months. As though the famine due to the spreading of pesticidesor growing urbanisation does not already affect them enough, the sixth mass extinction of animals currently happening hits birds particularly hard…

A conveniently forgotten public consultation

This law was in fact illegal, and not only a little. By cancelling our request of 13 June, the Besançon Administrative Tribunal recognised that the Prefect’s decree had not undergone public consultation before being passed. A serious error: citizens must be consulted for any decision that has an impact on the environment. And who would believe that the massacre of carrion crows and rooks, who play a fundamental role for biodiversity, has no impact on the environment?

Action against the list of species likely to cause damage by the Ministry

This persecution against animals that are victims of being classified as species likely to cause damage must stop. For crows and ravens, but also for foxes, martens, jays, and many others, we have been preparing to counter the new ministerial decree that will sentence them to death from the end of the summer for months. From 15 June, this bill is open to public opinion. There have been so many people wishing to participate in the consultation that the Ministry’s website has been full since its launch! Our rallying started months ago with the request to each prefecture for statements of the presumed damage. We found some gems: foxes attacking cows in a group, requests for the cost of eggs valued at the price of gold…

We are preparing our plea to the State Council to challenge this ministerial list of animals still wrongly considered as pests despite their change in name thanks to the associations’ insistence, and given that, in the wild, good and evil do not exist…

Refuse this absurd classification of sensitive and intelligent beings along with us by participating in the public consultation until 6 July. To help you to defend animals, you can refer to our substantive article on the subject.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

In court to save 16,000 Western jackdaws in Côtes-d’Armor and Finistère: hearing on 22 June in Rennes

In court to save 16,000 Western jackdaws in Côtes-d’Armor and Finistère: hearing on 22 June in Rennes
20.06.2023
In court to save 16,000 Western jackdaws in Côtes-d’Armor and Finistère: hearing on 22 June in Rennes
Wildlife

At the end of May, the Côtes-d’Armor and Finistère Prefectures published two decrees, each authorising the killing of 8000 Western jackdaws in the months to come. To stop this planned massacre on these birds that are relentlessly targeted, we are asking for an urgent suspension of these decrees, and eventually the cancellation of these delusional authorisations. The hearing will take place on 22 June at 10am at the Rennes Administrative Tribunal.

The young are doomed

As if the death of thousands of individuals targeted was not enough, these decrees also threaten young jackdaws that are still dependent on their parents during this nesting and rearing period. Alone in their nest, they are condemned to die of hunger without their protectors having returned, lying somewhere after having been killed by being shot mid-air or having succumbed to a trap…

A permanent fight

The persecution of these jackdaws is not new in the west of France. In spring 2022, we had already attacked four prefectural decrees authorising the killing of more than 27,000 birds. Thanks to our legal action, the three laws issued in Brittany were suspended and the majority of the animals were spared.

To prevent more carnage among Western jackdaws in Côtes d’Armor and Finistère, we will speak in favour of an urgent suspension of the prefectural decrees for them at the hearing which will take place on 22 June 2023 at 10am at the Rennes Administrative Tribunal.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

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