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Let’s stop scaring off bears that have been reintroduced in the Pyrenees!

Let’s stop scaring off bears that have been reintroduced in the Pyrenees!

Let’s stop scaring off bears that have been reintroduced in the Pyrenees!
17.05.2022
Let’s stop scaring off bears that have been reintroduced in the Pyrenees!
Wildlife

You are a female bear in the ancestral forests of Slovenia. You live your life in complete freedom, you have a family, and you are respected by communities. With ‘Saviour Syndrome’ having reached French leaders, it was decided that you would be captured, torn from your territory and your loved ones, transported and then released in a place that you would have to discover and in which the majority of humans around you are hostile and armed…Ministerial decrees have been issued every year since 2019 allowing the scaring of bears on a trial basis, but a draft decree plans to make this system permanent. Participate in the public consultation with us to avoid this!

The protection of animals called into question

In France, we protect species that have disappeared or nearly disappeared. Just like wolves, bears are part of a species whose members are not supposed to be hunted (Berne Convention, Washington Convention, European Directive ‘Habitats’, and the decrees of 23 April 2007 and 9 July 1999). Well that is the theory; the reality is quite different. Their species is not kept safe because their members are non-existent on French soil. As soon as one of them arrives, either naturally for the wolves, or by being ‘reintroduced’, farmers and hunters wait for them no matter what, weapons in hand. How absurd to tear these animals away from their homes to release them in a country that is hostile towards them!

We can legitimately question the government’s logic, who arrange for warning shots on the bears that they themselves uprooted… The aim was however that they reproduce and settle in long-term, with all of the risks that this brings.

Warning shots authorised

Yes, you read that right. Since 2019, the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food have authorised the cancellation of scaring measures ‘on a trial basis’. These measures can be ‘simple’ (sound, olfactory, visual scaring) or ‘intense’ (double detonation cartridges, plastic bullet cartridges). These decrees are said to be ‘executive’. They then let the Prefects issue additional decrees, authorising scaring when they consider the regular conditions set by the executive decrees to have been met and therefore to be insufficient. The interests of the farmers, who send their herds of animals to the abattoir, always come before wildlife.

A battle waged for years!

The decree of 27 June 2019, which put in place scaring measures for brown bears in the Pyrenees on a trial basis to prevent damage to herds, as well as that of 12 June 2002, have been attacked by many associations who defend the environment and animals and have both been partially annulled by the State Council, respectively on 4 February 2021 and 25 April 2022. This second partial annulment is explained by the fact that when the 2019 decree was partially annulled, the 2020 one had already been issued. These are therefore two similar decrees, with measures relating to intense scaring not having been revised…

We therefore hope that this year, the decree of 31 May 2021 will be completely annulled. We have filed a plea and still do not have the date of the hearing. At the same time, a public consultation opened on 19/05/2022, for a decree proposal

that plans to make bear scaring a success. Join us in rejecting this proposal!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Mina dead at the start of 2022 and Kamala taken abroad. But what are the authorities doing?!

Mina dead at the start of 2022 and Kamala taken abroad. But what are the authorities doing?!

Mina dead at the start of 2022 and Kamala taken abroad. But what are the authorities doing?!
27.04.2022
Mina dead at the start of 2022 and Kamala taken abroad. But what are the authorities doing?!
Circuses

Elephants exploited in French circuses for decades, complaints about not knowing what to do with them, an eventual law that just generates cynicism, and to what outcome? These great females are put into the worst places under stress and the others die in lorries without ever having lived a peaceful life… Rumours have been circulating about Mina and Kamala, the elephants kept by the Medrano Circus. We are requesting factual information and accounts from those in charge.

Social networks have related alarming information on one of the two elephants being kept by the Medrano Circus settled in Aimargues and whose opening order we have tried to have cancelled : Mina, who was presented to us as being in good health by both the establishment keeping her and by the DDPP services (Prefecture) within the framework of the proceedings taking place before the Rennes Administrative Tribunal, was in fact dead and had been for several months! And Kamala had re-joined the Skanda Vale Centre in the United Kingdom that welcomed Lechmee. A Centre which we had warned the Ministry of Ecology about since 2018 so that they did not let Maya be sent there because it is in no way an acceptable place for elephant welfare. All of this while Elephant Haven, in France, is an available, adequate, and welcoming sanctuary!

«This is a massacre for circus elephants and, at the moment, the Ministry is getting away with it unscathed and silently. It is scandalous.»Muriel Arnal

A law giving the illusion of action

The law on the mistreatment of animals passed in November 2021 is a huge farce for the animals being kept in circuses, especially for the elephants who are dying one after another or are being sent abroad. Because only travelling circuses are targeted, leaving those who want to settle down and to thus continue to exploit the animals at their leisure, as is the case with the Medrano circus. But this law has also still allowed the breeding of big cats for years… in addition to the fact that no application decree has yet been issued.

The authorities must show their accounts!

We are asking for the accounts and factual findings from the Côtes-d’Armor Prefecture.

«It is surprising to say the least that your services can continue to uphold before a court that the animals are in perfect health and kept in excellent conditions even when they are dead or have been given away. This at the very least reflects a dysfunction in your control tasks.»Extract from One Voice’s letter to the Côtes-d’Armor Prefecture (DDPP)

The Association is particularly worried about Mina’s fate, who is now deceased. We would like to understand the circumstances of her death and have access to all of the related documents, especially the veterinary autopsy report carried out and the rendering certificate. With regard to Kamala, the Association is asking for the CITES or CIC document and the handover date.

We have also written to the Rennes Tribunal, because if it turns out that Mina is indeed dead and Kamala has been given away in England, our complaint could be considered as ‘unfounded’ and therefore do absolutely nothing (as happened for the Barbary Macaque kept by the Poliakovs)… Because instead of ruling on problems at the time of the complaint, justice abandons legal proceedings as soon as the animals die from the consequences of the mistreatment they have received… and those who inflicted it on them get away with it. Incidentally, the Medrano Circus boasts, after so many years of cracking the whip and wielding an ankus, about now putting on a show without animals.

Finally, and as always (equally for Lechmee), the exploiters felt that the tide was turning and divested themselves of the elephants to avoid a withdrawal being imposed by the law after more than five years of One Voice’s legal proceedings.

 

Our incessant campaigns — proceedings, making the public aware, and pressure on the authorities with our investigation footage in particular — got the better of the resistance from the civil service, but too late for Mina who is most likely dead… We are doing all we can so that those responsible will pay.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice