A hearing against scaring brown bears in the Pyrenees at the State Council on 24 May

A hearing against scaring brown bears in the Pyrenees at the State Council on 24 May
23.05.2023
A hearing against scaring brown bears in the Pyrenees at the State Council on 24 May
Wildlife

To protect brown bears in the Pyrenees, we will be at the emergency suspension hearing at the State Council on 24 May at 10:30am. We are asking for the urgent suspension of the 4 May 2023 Ministerial decree that allows prefects to authorise scaring shots aimed at animals in their departments.

Photo: Collectif Hope

There are scarcely 70 individuals living in the Pyrenees. Despite being classified as critically in danger of extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and protected on an international, European, and national level, brown bears are harassed relentlessly in France, at the risk of causing miscarriages for the female bears who are already having so much trouble surviving and getting their young to survive.

Each year, they are subjected to scaring shots authorised by prefectures with the blessing of the Ministries for the Ecological Transition and of Agriculture. To move them away from herds and achieve social peace among farmers, authorities allow bears to be victims of sound-effect shots, causing them stress and the possible separation of the female bears from their young. All of this even though the French National Council for the Protection of Nature [Conseil national de la protection de la nature (CNPN)] has estimated that these violent measures against these animals are much less effective than ensuring effective and proportionate protection of herds…

Measures that we are attacking at the source

In 2022, we were successful in getting all of the prefectural decrees allowing the harassment of brown bears in Ariège cancelled. After this sizeable victory, we are rallying to get the Ministerial decree of 4 May 2023 aiming to allow the scaring of these individuals in the Pyrenees suspended and then cancelled. Because without this Ministerial decree, no prefect would be able to authorise these shots on a local level.

With the decree that we are attacking, the government has confirmed its desire to use drastic measures against bears, even though the viability of their population is not guaranteed, and it is this Ministry that insists on capturing female bears in Eastern Europe to transport them to France! From our side, we are reaffirming our opposition to this cynical policy that pretends to want to revive the population of these threatened animals in our country, to then pursue them with dispersal grenades for up to eight months of the year.

To stop the government from allowing prefectures to authorise bear scaring in our mountain ranges, we will face the Ministry at the State Council on Wednesday 24 May at 10:30am.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

One Voice comes to the rescue for the Doubs birds

One Voice comes to the rescue for the Doubs birds
21.05.2023
One Voice comes to the rescue for the Doubs birds
Wildlife

One Voice is filing a complaint to maintain peace for protected birds in Doubs.

In Doubs, many activities that are toxic for biodiversity have been carried out in recent years on sites protected by a prefetural decree, putting birds belonging to species that are themselves protected in danger. One Voice is filing a complaint.

On 16 March, a helicopter flew over the cliffs of Mount Souvance in Doubs, under the scope of working on a railway below. These round trips bringing crates from the railway to a depot came with the helicopter hovering in front of the cliffs, where peregrine falcons and common ravens in particular nest.

For several hours, these vulnerable animals that desperately need calm in the middle of their nesting period were subjected to the deafening racket of the motor and the gusts of air from the propellers. How can they reproduce and bring up their young successfully in such conditions? And that is without counting the other birds potentially affected, such as European robins, common blackbirds, great tits…

Birds threatened relentlessly

From 15 February to 15 June, it is expressly forbidden by prefectural decree to hover over this protected environment that represents a complete sanctuary for the animals who live there. And the reason that a wildlife association wanted to alert us to this situation is because this is not the first time that these destructive practices have threatened the environment and endangered birds in Doubs. In March 2022, tree, bush, and shrub pruning and cutting had already happened without authorisation.

Although necessary for safety, the operations carried out around the railways should not be done to the detriment of animals. And certainly not in the middle of the reproduction and nesting period, which their survival depends on. Especially as the birds, tested greatly by the massive use of pesticides in the countryside and by climate change, are already hugely threatened. Are we going to lead all species to a point of no return and continue to harass individuals even when they are endangered?

This case is reminiscent of the repeated slaughtering of ibex, themselves protected, in Bargy that we were successful in having recognised as illegal for some of them. Or even the trapping and massacre of field larks, classified on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. And it proves to us, if there is still a need to, that no animal, however threatened or protected they may be, is safe in France.

One Voice is filing a complaint for these birds and their environment to finally be taken into account and to stop being put in danger. In Doubs, as throughout France, we will keep rallying for birds.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Snowball effect against digging out badgers! Departments at the Bern Convention?

Snowball effect against digging out badgers! Departments at the Bern Convention?
17.05.2023
Snowball effect against digging out badgers! Departments at the Bern Convention?
Wildlife

After having won resounding victories in the Haute-Vienne, Tarn-et-Garonne, Manche, Orne, Oise, and Charente-Maritime Departments, One Voice is continuing its extensive legal attack to save families of badgers from being dug out. Although hundreds of individuals have been saved thanks to our actions, the road ahead remains long to reach our goal: for no badger to be dug out this spring.

Time after time, administrative jurisdictions have ruled to suspend the additional period for underground hunting with hounds from May to September. For years, with our investigative footage, we have condemned this type of cruel hunting, particularly for badgers and dogs, as well as it being illegal. And our fight will not stop there: outside of our action on a national level, we have just filed a complaint against France at the Bern Standing Committee along with our partners.

According to the State: if in doubt, let’s make hunters happy!

Digging out is a type of hunting which persecutes families of badgers for hours. In the confusion, the female badgers try to defend their young, sometimes injuring the dogs, before themselves being killed by hunters by being attacked with a knife or gun. The young who survive these assaults die a few days later, left alone in the woodland.

The arguments put forward by the State to defend this practice are swept aside by tribunals: yes, in the spring and summer, badger cubs are still present in the setts. Yes, underground hunting is a ‘blind’ hunt, to quote the Amiens Administrative Tribunal, which does not allow a distinction between the young, adults, or even individuals from a protected species.

And prefectures accept the fact that measures imposed by law are not respected. Numerous decrees for which we have obtained a suspension have been passed even though the State services have no data on badgers; no idea of the number of individuals present in the country and of the alleged damage that is the subject of far-fetched assessments. In Haute-Vienne, the State claimed that the badgers would prey on cattle!

If in doubt, ‘let’s make hunters happy’ seems to be the State’s motto when it comes to hunting.

If, in these six areas, the female badgers and their families have their lives saved in the months to come, the list of prefectures authorising digging out this spring and summer will continue to grow. In ten other departments, the additional period for underground hunting will open from 15 May. And a number of them have not, to this date, published the decrees authorising this practice. A way to ensure that, even if we refer to a judge, hunters have enough time to be able to devote themselves to their hobby.

Our fight continues to obtain a ban on underground hunting

The fight against digging out is a marathon: on 17 May at 10:15am, we will be at the Orléans Administrative Tribunal to obtain a definitive cancellation on two decrees passed in 2021 which authorise additional periods in Indre-et-Loire and Loir-et-Cher.

In the weeks to come, we will increase our action to continue to give badgers a voice and to obtain an urgent suspension on them being hunted during this very delicate time for their young. Emergency interim proceedings have already been set at the Clermont-Ferrand Administrative Tribunal on 30 May at 10am for the Allier and Puy-de-Dôme Departments where we will step in alongside FNE 03 and FNE 63. In Lyon, we will defend badgers in Rhône on 31 May at 10am. In Orléans, on 5 June at 2pm, we will attack the Eure-et-Loir and Loiret decrees.

Other hearings will be announced for the Vendée, Loir-et-Cher, Lot-et-Garonne, Meuse, and also the Aisne Departments, where hunters want to kill young badgers to be able to rifle through the contents of their stomachs in order to prove that they would be weaned by May. With our partner AVES, we will request an immediate suspension on this heinous decree.

Although magistrates appear to already understand that digging out badgers in the spring is illegal, this is far from being the case for our councillors or local authorities: to convince them, continue to sign our petition for the badgers and for a radical reform on hunting!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

A hunting pen in Loire-Atlantique for killing animals in total privacy

A hunting pen in Loire-Atlantique for killing animals in total privacy
15.05.2023
A hunting pen in Loire-Atlantique for killing animals in total privacy
Wildlife

In Loire-Atlantique, there a few hunting pens that exist on our map… One of them is one of the smallest we know of. Having been warned, we thus decided to go there.This enclosed place, created around twenty years ago to kill animals among hunting friends and clients, is not worried about the presence of the neighbours “training dogs” to massacre animals or even organising foxhunts. Organised animal cruelty on 60 hectares of non-compliance, approved by the authorities.

At the start, the property was home to a farm of wild boars. But the owner had to close it, forced to by a legal decision (that is what he said anyway, but an intervention by Nos Viventia into this enclosure a few months ago leaves us wondering about this). So, for more than ten years, the power struggle of the locals continued with the owner. Despite regulations banning the possibility of opening such a place (size of the enclosure, protected forest that should allow the animals to pass through, danger to neighbours, and open conflict due to building permits…), the authorities seem to have yielded to all of the owner’s demands. The fences are not regulation size? Never mind, they still authorise the deal!
Even the pipes, small ditches between the ponds, and small streams passing from one property to another, have been blocked by mesh to ensure that no animal survives, something which is normally prohibited.

Because in France, we have a sneaking suspicion that each time hunters ask for something, prefectures let them have it. The lobby is powerful. And how many prefects or parliamentarians are themselves hunters…

The footage from April 2022 that our investigators brought back even shows that in the middle of a clearing there is a small bird farm. Whether it be pheasants or partridges, they are released according to their desires and for ‘shooting sessions’ on live animals. Birds that have not even learnt to live without humans there to feed them, who would never have flown up high or far, as we showed in our previous investigations into these types of breeding farms.

Nature has been pillaged to create this pen. Deer and other woodland animals in the nearby area are often found in traps. A small mound makes one of the fences lower on the outside of the property than on the inside. Animals can therefore easily go into the park but can find it difficult to get back out. The blocked pipes prevent small animals from getting from one pond to the next.

And twice, a few weeks ago, the neighbours protected a large deer that came to find refuge at their house from the hunters and their hounds. And each time, they have to remove the dogs and put off the hunters who are trying to get into their home to kill these splendid animals. A situation that has become unbearable.

Finally, the new owner of the premises has tried to extend their land by trimming their neighbours’ land in order to reach the minimum area for a hunting pen… A scandal that is all the more concerning as the slightest bullet ricocheting would also risk these neighbours’ lives!

Take a look at our infiltration investigations into penned hunting in Bourgogne, Île-de-France, and Sologne.
Sign our petition0073 to ban penned hunting and for a radical reform on hunting!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Manche, Orne, Haute-Vienne: a succession of victories by One Voice for badgers!

Manche, Orne, Haute-Vienne: a succession of victories by One Voice for badgers!
10.05.2023
Manche, Orne, Haute-Vienne: a succession of victories by One Voice for badgers!
Wildlife

After the Dijon tribunal, it is the turn of the courts in Limoges and Caen to suspend decrees being carried out authorising badger digging in the Haute-Vienne, Manche, and Orne departments in the spring. The administrative judges recognise that there is indeed a serious doubt on the legality of these decisions. Initial victories for badgers, who will therefore have their lives saved this spring.

*This spring and summer 2023, badgers and their young will have peace in the Haute-Vienne, Orne, and Manche departments.

Under the framework of our large-scale attack against decrees authorising digging out badgers this spring, we are winning the first key victories.

On Friday 5 May, the Limoges Administrative Tribunal suspended the Haute-Vienne Prefect’s decree from being carried out. For the court, there was indeed a serious doubt on the legality of this decision, passed following botched proceedings.

In Caen, the Administrative Tribunal agreed with us and ruled, beyond the procedural flaws, that additional periods of digging out were likely to harm the young, still present in the setts at this time of year. The judge went further and, for the first time, admitted that the very possibility of digging in the spring is illegal.

At least 800 badgers spared. We will not stop there

Badgers are not animals that reproduce quickly. They only have one litter per year, and generally one or two cubs, rarely more. Their development is slow and it can take more than a year for them to gain independence!

In total, in Haute-Vienne, almost 500 of them will be saved by our actions. In Orne, more than 300 badgers and badger cubs will have their lives saved. The Manche Prefecture did not bother to tell the court how many badgers were killed each year by digging to respond to our arguments and those of AVES France (who took the same position as we did at the hearing for this department).

Year after year, One Voice and its partners obtain significant victories against illegal decrees passed by State representatives. In the weeks to come, we will continue to defend badgers in dozens of departments from Ardennes to Lot-et-Garonne and right up to the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.

More than ever, we need your help to give these animals, martyrs of our woodlands, a voice. Sign the petition to demand an abolition, pure and simple, on digging, and for us to stop using the word badger in a derogatory manner! You can also find us in thirteen towns in France for our coordinated national action to defend them as well as foxes, who are also victims of this cruel hunting method.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice