News Archive - Page 55 of 124

Femke, the authorities are still tackling her autopsy report…

Femke, the authorities are still tackling her autopsy report…
07.02.2022
Femke, the authorities are still tackling her autopsy report…
Dolphinariums

After one year, we still have not received Femke’s autopsy report. After a letter to the Prefecture and an open letter to Parc Astérix, a request to the Committee for Access to Administrative Documents, who authorised us to obtain this document, and a reply from the park, we once again turn to the Oise Prefecture…According to the park, the Departmental Directorate for Protecting Populations (DDPP: the Prefecture’s veterinary services) have supervised all of the dolphinarium’s projects and the autopsy report is at their sole disposition. We request that the death of Femke is fully investigated and for this the Prefecture must be transparent. What are they waiting for?

Mrs Corinne Orzechowski
Oise Prefect
2, Avenue de l’Europe
BP 70634
60 006 Beauvais Cedex

Vannes, 4 February 2022

Dear Madam Prefect,

A year has passed since the dolphin named Femke, kept by Parc Astérix, was euthanised. To understand the circumstances surrounding her death, we requested in February 2021 that you let us have her full autopsy report. Faced with your silence and with the favourable recommendation of the Committee for Access to Administrative Documents, we have made a request to the courts for disclosure of these documents.

As part of this procedure, your services have indicated to us that they do not have this information.

We therefore withdrew our plea given that the law does not actually provide an explicit obligation for the owner to send this report to the Prefecture.

However, keen to understand the reasons for this action and to respond to queries from our members, we addressed the Director of Parc Astérix in an open letter. She responded to us on 20 January 2022, saying that Femke’s autopsy report was available at the Oise DDPP.

As you know, bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) belong to a protected species on a national and community level, and are part of our wildlife heritage.

Due to their unique nature in terms of sensitivity, intelligence, and culture, cetaceans are also at the heart of recurring scientific debates on their skills and their status as non-human persons. Femke’s living conditions and her fate therefore transcend the question of ownership.

This is the reason why the data concerning the circumstances of her death must be known by the general public and is in their general interest.

This is why we are asking you once more to show transparency on this issue by sending us a copy of the autopsy report, which only you can be the recipient of.

We thank you for your attention to this letter and ask that you accept the expression of our highest consideration.

Muriel Arnal
Founding President of One Voice

Femke’s autopsy report: response from Parc Astérix

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Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Justice comes to the rescue of the Muller Circus against Jumbo and us

Surreal: the Lyon Administrative Court of Appeal feels that the Muller Circus was conformant and has condemned One Voice. We are making a cassation appeal.

The last years of Jon the lion, discovering a taste for a life out of the circus

Jon passed away on 29 January 2022, far away from being whipped and kept in the Cirque de Paris lorry, close to two years after his rescue.

Indonesia must stop capturing monkeys for animal experimentation!

We are working with Action for Primates to put a stop to the capture and exportation of monkeys in Indonesia for animal experimentation.

Wild animal farming in France: a disastrous situation

Following our investigation into deer being exploited for meat, we are tracking the breeding farms for wild animals that are destined to be hunted or sent to the abattoir.

Threats to poach wolves: we are filing a complaint!

Threats to poach wolves: we are filing a complaint!
24.01.2022
Threats to poach wolves: we are filing a complaint!
Wildlife

A farmers union is calling for the illegal massacre of wolves and hiding the bodies? We are filing a complaint. Wolves must be respected and protected. As for the State, they must take responsibility and stop engaging in double dealings.

Edit from 3 February 2022:

On 31 January 2022, we filed a second complaint, this time before the Limoges Legal Tribunal. They have joined to conclude our legal proceeding in order to include declarations from the Haute-Vienne Rural Organisation.

At the beginning of December 2021, the Haute-Vienne Rural Organisation published a press release on the presence of wolves, in which it is written in black and white: “In Haute-Vienne, we have pellets and poison and will regulate by ourselves!”

Taking this idea up on Saturday 22 January, Florian Tournade, President of the same union in the Creuse department, has thus confirmed in front of the camera for France 3, in Nouvelle Aquitaine: “For us, the solution is poison and pellets. We invite farmers to take their hunting rifles and to kill the wolves without saying anything. We must do this discretely to make the bodies disappear. The Rural Organisation will reimburse the pellets and the bags of lime.” They even drive the point home by asking all farmers to exterminate wolves.

Around a hundred wolves are already massacred every year with the State’s approval

A farmers union calling for organised crime on members of a protected species? The Ministry of the Ecological Transition reacted quickly, announcing that they were opening an enquiry… but knowing that the State authorised the annual massacre of more than one hundred wolves, we were shocked to read the Minister’s falsely indignant tweet.

We are filing a complaint at the Guéret Legal Tribunal

Poaching of a protected species is a crime, punishable by several years in prison. Incitement to commit a crime is also prohibited by law.

We are filing a complaint for collusion by incitement to destroy specimens from a protected animal species and provocation to commit a crime through mass media. The Pet’s Rescue France association is also joining our complaint.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

The harrowing cry for help from the Zavatta Circus lions in Freneuse

Lions have been hidden, shut in a trailer for four weeks. We are filing a complaint against the circus.

Whistle-blowers: 36 associations and trade unions are calling out senators

On Wednesday 19 January, while senators were getting ready to discuss the bill aiming to improve protection for whistle-blowers, 36 organisations from civil society, comprising of associations, trade unions, and whistle-blowers, gathered together before the Senate to call upon senators to clarify and reinforce protection measures for whistle-blowers in France.

One Voice is re-entering the fray for Angora rabbits

One Voice is filing a negligence complaint at the European Union Court of Justice and a preliminary review alongside the Ministry of Agriculture and Food for Angora rabbits.

The squeals of Angora rabbits: One Voice is blowing the whistle in 16 towns in France on 22 and 23 January 2022

One Voice is organising a coordinated national effort among its activists in sixteen French towns in the last weekend of January, to warn of the fate of Angora rabbits whose fur is torn out multiple times a year for the vanity and comfort of certain humans. They howl during the plucking process, and flaps of skin are often ripped off them along with the fur, documented by our investigations done several years apart for six years (in 2016, 2018, and 2020). After disappointments relating to this case in the past in the face of justice, the association relaunched, with new information, two legal proceedings: a negligence complaint before the European Commission and a preliminary appeal to the Minister of Agriculture.