Hunting grey partridges: converting the try in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques!

Hunting grey partridges: converting the try in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques!
06.09.2023
Pyrénées-Atlantiques
Hunting grey partridges: converting the try in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques!
Wildlife

While grey mountain partridges are considered as ‘near-threatened’ in France by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), prefects persist and continue to authorise them being hunted. In 2022, we filed an urgent plea so that no more killing could take place in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. After having won the case on this point, we are also asking for a definitive cancellation of the decree. The hearing will take place at the Pau Administrative Tribunal on 7 September 2023 at 10:30am. Many others are planned in the months to come.

Mountain Galliformes are threatened from all sides, and hunting is one of the main reasons for their decline. As the season of hearings for the 2023-2024 period begins, we remain completely ready to rally on last year’s cases. On 4 October 2022, a few days before the suspension on hunting black grouse, rock ptarmigan, and rock partridges in Savoie, the Pau Administrative Tribunal judge suspended the decree authorising the killing of grey mountain partridges in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Thanks to this success, none of them were slaughtered in the department in the previous season.

Strengthened by this victory, we are now counting on the Tribunal to definitively cancel this decree following the hearing that will take place on 7 September 2023 in Pau. And we are convinced that the judge will not deviate from the position held by the emergency suspension interim tribunal as the illegalities are so obvious.

While this species of Galliforme is endangered, the Prefect has authorised each shooter in the department to kill four birds: a planned massacre for this emblematic species in the Pyrenees mountain range, for whom European law has banned putting their good conservation status in danger.

And what can we say about the procedure for passing this decree that was botched by the Prefecture? It should have made specific information available to the public but it did nothing. In doing so, it proved that it did not have the slightest idea of the number of grey partridges it its area…

Currently, we are still waiting for the judge’s decision for the Pyrénées-Orientales department after the hearing on 30 August. And in the weeks to come, we will be at numerous tribunals, both to get definitive cancellations and urgent suspensions of the decrees for the 2022-2023 season. With a clear objective: to continue to give a voice to black grouse, rock partridges, hazel grouse, or even rock ptarmigans, until we put a stop to them being hunted once and for all!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Deaths, deaths, and more deaths: the dramatic track record of hunting in France

Deaths, deaths, and more deaths: the dramatic track record of hunting in France
31.08.2023
France
Deaths, deaths, and more deaths: the dramatic track record of hunting in France
Wildlife

45 million animals killed, 78 accidents and 6 human deaths. These are the numbers from the 2022-2023 hunting season. Year after year, the report is the same: this hobby kills, and public powers have decided to do nothing. While biodiversity is disappearing before our eyes and wildlife is being privatised by a small group of armed individuals, it is no longer time for trivial measures but for a radical reform of hunting!

On 2 December 2020, Morgan Keane, 25 years old, was killed by a bullet while he was chopping wood on his own land. While this unintentional homicide could have remained confined to the pages of a newspaper, the tenacity of the young man’s loved ones allowed the shooter and the person leading the hunt to be convicted, in a proceeding which One Voice was part of and supported. But for this one conviction, how many cases were buried? Far from being anecdotal, this tragedy is symptomatic of a deadly activity for humans, animals, and wildlife, and reveals a total lack of will from public powers to oppose individuals who impose their rules on everyone else.

Hunting: a questionable hobby that leads to death

Every year, almost 45 million wild animals are killed in cold blood. More than ever, they are being attacked from all sides, from repeated administrative battles to exemptions to be able to dig out badgers outside of the hunting season, via classifying ‘species likely to cause damage’ allowing numerous species to be killed all year round and without any restrictions… And let’s not forget pet animals, victims of all of the traps that are strewn across the soil of our countryside, and sometimes killed in front of their owners for disturbing hunters in pursuit of their bloody hobby.

Animals are not the only victims: six people have lost their lives this year. As for representatives from the hunting world, they display a strange satisfaction and congratulate themselves on these six deaths, even though they were all hunters… These deaths add to the many that have hit the headlines in recent years, from the British cyclist killed in Haute-Savoie to this 25 year-old walker victim of a young 17 year-old woman, or even to Joël Viard, killed by a bullet while he was driving his car.

So many lives taken so that a handful of individuals can have fun killing!

Trivial measures and patch-up jobs: what are the government playing at?

Faced with this catastrophic situation, we had hoped for the beginnings of progress, after our hearing by the senatorial mission on securing hunting and the success of the petition launched by the Un Jour Un Chasseur [One Day One Hunter] Collective. But the government, once again, played for time and proposed trivial measures well below what is expected of them to cope with the scale of the disaster.

Today, hunters’ training is a true sham, as our investigation revealed regarding the licensing process, and hunters continue to do everything they can to fight against common sense proposals to limit or even eradicate risking human deaths, such as annual eye tests, or a ban on hunting at the weekends and during summer holidays. And the government dares to present blood alcohol limits as a step forward, which should have been put in place decades ago!

A hobby that shames ecology…

The refusal to tackle security deficiencies head-on is more proof, if it were needed, of the omnipotence of this lobby which is favoured by the Head of State, who proudly posed in front of a hunting painting in Chambord for his fortieth birthday. Hard to be shocked when Thierry Coste himself admits to practising
“frantic, assertive lobbying[…] without the slightest restraint”. And what can we say about these hunting representatives, oscillating between climate scepticism (for a long time and reiterating their dubious theories very recently through Willy Schraen, current President of the Fédération nationale des chasseurs [National Federation of Hunters]) and excitement at the idea of killing animals (for their predecessor)? They even have a permanent platform to carry out their deadly ideology…

While 87% of French people believe that hunting poses safety issues (IPSOS/One Voice survey, September 2022), as the countless deaths every year attest to, it is about time we tackle the cause of this mortal danger, and urgently demand a radical reform of hunting again and again!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

We are asking that the lions at Oran Zoo are put into a sanctuary

We are asking that the lions at Oran Zoo are put into a sanctuary
31.08.2023
Algeria
We are asking that the lions at Oran Zoo are put into a sanctuary
Wildlife

Warned by numerous people who are very worried about the living conditions of the lions at the Oran Zoological Park, we wrote to the French Ambassador in Algeria to ask that she get involved along with the Algerian government to get these animals rescued and placed into a sanctuary.

It was a young 21 year-old man who blew the whistle on social media a few days ago. Shocked by what he had discovered within this establishment, Ziyed published a video, thanks to which we found out about these animals’ alarming situation.

On the premises, several lions are forced to share minuscule cages that do not allow them to exert themselves, play, or even less to escape the watch of visitors and the surrounding racket. While they do not sit still, lethargic, they show heavy stereotypy behaviours, tirelessly repeating the same movements. Staring outside from behind the prison bars, a thin lioness roars.

According to our information, she and her unfortunate companions would only receive food once a day, and a visibly insufficient quantity of it.

Outraged by the distress and thinness of these animals, who remind us of that of Jon, Hannah, Céleste, Marli, and Patty when we saved them from the Cirque de Paris, or even the incessant comings and goings of the lionesses and tigers at Parc Saint Léger, we wrote to the French Ambassador in Algeria for her to intervene for these big cats along with the Algerian government.

We stand ready to find places in a sanctuary and to organise the transport fees for these lions to be taken from the Oran Zoo to a new life where cages, boredom, and hunger will be nothing but a distant memory.

Sign the petition launched by Ziyed

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

One Voice is back at the Administrative Tribunals to save mountain Galliformes

One Voice is back at the Administrative Tribunals to save mountain Galliformes
29.08.2023
France
One Voice is back at the Administrative Tribunals to save mountain Galliformes
Wildlife

Following our victories last year, in particular in the High Alps and Savoie, we decided to heighten our fight for mountain Galliformes. The hunting season is open, as are those from the hearings! The first one of this new 2023-2024 season will take place on 30 August at 2pm at the Montpellier Administrative Tribunal.

These wonderful birds truly have many threats weighing against them… for example, we are thinking about global warming that strongly affects mountain environments and the animals that live there, disruptions during sensitive periods due to tourist seasons, or even deforestation… And on top of this, they are still hunted despite common sense and their deplorable conservation status!

As an example, the grey mountain partridges are classified as ‘near-threatened’ on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list in France, which indicates that the species will be faced with a heightened risk of extinction in the wild in the near future.

Despite this sub-species of grey partridge only being present in the Pyrenean chain, the Pyrénées-Orientales Prefect has, within the decree opening the 2023-2024 hunting season, directly authorised killing two partridges per day and per head (with a maximum limit of 10 partridges per hunter) during the period from 17/09/2023 to 11/11/2023.

It is all the more unbearable that this morbid quota is perfectly arbitrary since the administration has not even waited for the results of the tally that took place in the summer to define a number of grey mountain partridges to be slaughtered. The Prefect has therefore not based this on any methodology.

Either way, continuing to authorise this massacre is quite simply absurd and unjustifiable. Slaughtering birds does not respond to any justifiable need to ‘regulate’ (impossible for hunters to hide behind this kind of argument) a species that is already threatened everywhere and whose representatives are just asking to live in peace. In other words, such a hunt has no other function than a hobby for those who practice it. An unhealthy and particularly debatable hobby on an ethical level, at a time when biodiversity and the living beings who comprise it are suffering a mass slump.

For all of these reasons, One Voice has entered a plea for a cancellation and an emergency interim suspension proceeding. The hearing, set for 30 August, will tell us if our sensible arguments have convinced the Tribunal. In any case, we will continue to fight for every grey partridge’s life and all the more so for all mountain Galliformes!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Open letter regarding Iberian orcas and their interactions with ships

Open letter regarding Iberian orcas and their interactions with ships
27.08.2023
International
Open letter regarding Iberian orcas and their interactions with ships
Wildlife

Cetacean experts, many of whom are those who regularly call upon One Voice to strengthen their stance, published an open letter to warn of the importance of not drawing hasty conclusions regarding orcas’ interactions with boats.

Photo: Michael Bamford – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The undersigned are experts in cetacean biology and behaviour, including several who specialise in orcas (also called ‘killer whales’).

Interactions between orcas (which we will refer to as ‘Iberian orcas’ below) and ships along the coasts of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) as well as in neighbouring waters provoke keen interest from the public. We are worried about the fact that factual errors regarding these interactions are repeated in the media and embellished with a story – devoid of any scientific or genuine basis – according to which these animals attack boats aggressively or look to take revenge on sailors. We believe that this story inappropriately gives cetaceans human motivations and we fear that its perpetuation does not result in punitive responses from sailors or administrators. Orcas have shown a wide range of behaviours during interactions, including many corresponding to playful social behaviour.

Consequently, we would like to clarify facts based on the scientific evidence available. Most of this information comes from a peer reviewed article published in Marine Mammal Science in 2022 by several signatories of this letter.

Iberian orcas are classified on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) red list as being in critical danger of extinction. Their population is likely less than forty individuals. These orcas represent a geographically isolated and genetically distinct sub-population, which mainly feed on bluefin tuna.

These disruptive interactions with ships truly started in July 2020. To date, at least eleven juveniles and four adult females have been identified as participating or observing. There is no evidence of the existence of a recognisable ‘leader’ who would be at the head of this interference. Researchers have given these fifteen orcas the Latin name Gladis
and an individual name: for example, Gladis Blanca or Gladis Negra (respectively White Gladis and Black Gladis in English). We discovered that the juvenile female Gladis Negra – initially reported to have interacted with boats – had a laceration on her head at the start of spring 2020 and an injury behind her dorsal fin later in 2021. The origin of the two injuries remains unknown.

The nature of the interactions is distributed as follows: no contact with the ship, light or moderate contact with minor or no damage to the ship, significant contact with serious damage (preventing sailing). Since spring 2021, at least five damaged ships sank. Serious damage is produced in only 20% of these interactions.

Despite damage caused to ships, we believe that is it wrong to consider these interactions as ‘attacks’. Although the boats (rarely) had teeth marks in some places, the predominant damage to the rudders and the keels were due to collisions or water hammers to the head or body. Orcas do not demolish the rudders like they would if they were hunting. Even if their behaviour is scary (and costs money) from a human perspective, from the orcas’ perspective it appears rather recreational.

Orcas, like any other species of dolphin, are incidentally known for starting cultural ‘trends’ – meaning new behaviours that last briefly in time and develop within a given population, such as carrying dead fish on their heads, and which we could compare to our clothing ‘trends’. Although interactions with ships can represent a similar phenomenon, they persist for a longer time than a trend kind of behaviour, spreading it throughout the population, and have a more and more significant impact. Nevertheless, it is possible that, following the examples of previous trends, this behaviour will disappear as suddenly as it appeared.

We are urging the media and the public to no longer construct projective stories about these animals. In the absence of any additional proof, people must not presume to understand their motivations. The orca is an intelligent and socially complex species. Each population has its own culture which includes various vocalisations (called dialects), preferences when it comes to prey, hunting techniques, and even different social structures and migratory behaviours. Iberian orcas present a behaviour which, among cetaceans, has never been seen with such regularity. Even in the days of industrial hunting on wooden vessels, while much bigger whales had a reputation for smashing or damaging ships, such incidents were relatively rare. Science still cannot explain why Iberian orcas act this way, even though, as we noted earlier, such behaviour is most likely linked to playing and socialisation rather than aggression. It is unfounded and potentially dangerous for these animals to claim that it is about vengeance for past wrongs or to spin another melodramatic story.

While we are at sea, we are in the realm of marine life. We do not have the right to punish wildlife for being wild. We must keep cool while animals present previously unseen behaviours, and we must redouble our efforts to adapt our own actions and behaviours in their presence. The survival of species with whom we share this planet depends on it.

Signatories:

• Dr Naomi A. Rose, Scientific Director, Institute of Marine Mammal Biology and Animal Welfare, United States

• Dr Robin W. Baird, Director of the Hawaii programme, Cascadia Research Collective, United States

• Dr Giovanni Bearzi, President, Dolphin Biology and Conservation, Italy

• Dr Maddalena Bearzi, President, United States Marine Conservation Society, United States

• Dr Jaime Bolaños, Executive Director, Caribbean-Wide Orca Project (CWOP), Sea Vida Coordinator (Venezuela), Venezuela

• Dr Inês Carvalho, Population and Conservation Genetics Group, Instituto Gulbenkian Ciência, Portugal

• Dr Mel Cosentino, Marine Mammal Researcher, Aarhus University, Denmark

• Dr Volker Deecke, Wildlife Conservation Professor, University of Cumbria, United Kingdom

• Dr Rocío Espada-Ruiz, University of Seville, Ecolocaliza, GTOA (Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica/Atlantic Orca Working Group), Spain

• Dr Ruth Esteban, Madère Whale Museum GTOA, Portugal

• Dr Andrew Foote, PhD Researcher, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, University of Oslo, Norway

• Dr Tilen Genov, Morigenos – Slovenian Marine Mammal Society, IUCN Group of Cetacean Specialists, Slovenia

• Dr Deborah Giles, Science and Research Director of Wild Orca, United States

• Dr Christophe Guinet, Research Director, CNRS, Chizé Biological Research Centre, France

• Dr Erich Hoyt, Research Fellow, Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) and IUCN SSC/WCPA Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force co-chair, United Kingdom

• Dr Eve Jourdain, Thesis Director and Research Fellow, Norwegian Orca Survey, Norway

• Dr Alfredo López Fernández, University of Aveiro, CESAM CEMMA, GTOA, Portugal

• Dr Eduardo Morteo Ortiz, Thesis Director, Marine Mammal Laboratory at the University of Veracruzana (LabMMar-IIB-ICIMAP-UV), Mexico

• Dr Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara, Honorary Chairman, Tethys Research Institute, Italy

• Dr Laetitia Nunny, Scientific Consultant, MSc OceanCare, Spain

• Dr Liliana Olaya-Ponzone, University of Seville GTOA, Spain

• Dr Christian D. Ortega Ortiz, PhD Professor, University of Colima, Mexico

• Dr E. C. M. Parsons, Teaching Fellow, Centre for Conservation and Ecology, University of Exeter, United Kingdom

• Dr Héctor Pérez Puig, MSc, Marine Mammal Programme Coordinator, Centro de Estudios Culturales y Ecológicos Prescott, A.C. Mexico, Mexico

• Dr Randall Reeves, PhD Chair, IUCN-SSC Cetacean Specialist Group, Canada

• Dr Filipa Samarra, Research Specialist, University of Iceland, Iceland

• Dr Marina Séqueira, Institute for the Conservation of Wildlife and Forests GTOA, Portugal

• Dr Tiu Similä, Chief Scientist, Whale2Sea, Norway

• Dr Mark Peter Simmonds, OceanCare, Director of Science, United Kingdom

• Dr Courtney E. Smith, Affiliated Faculty, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, United States

• Dr Paul Tixier, Researcher, Marine mammal ecology and their interactions with human activity, National Institute for Sustainable Development, IRD MARBEC, France

• Dr Jared Towers, Executive Director, Bay Cetology, Canada

• Dr Lindy Weilgart, OceanCare Adjunct Senior Ocean Noise Expert and Policy Consultant, Biology Department, Dalhousie University, Canada

• Dr Hal Whitehead, PhD Professor, Dalhousie University, Canada

• Dr Alex Zerbini, Scientific Director, Cooperative Institute for Climate Ecosystem and Ocean Studies, University of Washington, United States

Translated from the French by Joely Justice