News Archive - Page 59 of 148

Persecution of captive wild animals sanctioned by the State Council

Persecution of captive wild animals sanctioned by the State Council
22.02.2023
France
Persecution of captive wild animals sanctioned by the State Council
Wildlife

For more than five years, we have been relentlessly fighting before the State Council to obtain the annulment of decrees successively implemented by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition regarding captive wild animals. Last Friday 17 February, we won a new victory with the partial cancellation of a decree that was encouraging trafficking and the elimination of wild animals.

For years, we have stated that the Ministry for the Ecological Transition strives to implement laws that absolutely do not protect wild animals from misfortune and exploitation.

First appeal won five years ago

In 2018, under the cover of wanting to simplify the regulations on captive wild animals, they passed a decree that allowed all kinds of abuse and unnecessary actions, by providing for an easier detention system for wild animals, particularly their young, and without taking into account scientific knowledge relevant to them. Clearly, accompanied by our partners, we fought against it before the State Council and we obtained a partial cancellation of it.

Three years later, the government is doing it again!

Far from following their 2020 decision, the Ministry passed a new decree in March 2021, this time indicating that animals born in breeding farms were not taken into account in the calculation of the numbers given that they were juvenile.

This blatant disregard for laws and legal decisions is particularly shocking. Once again, the law paved the way for keeping and trafficking young wild animals, such as tiger or lion cubs, and pushed breeders to get rid of the young before they reached adulthood. On the strength of these findings, we immediately filed an emergency interim suspension proceeding, alone this time, asking for the partial cancellation of this shameful decree.

After a relentless fight, the State Council cancelled article 3 of the 2021 decree last Friday. Therefore, new wild animal births should be taken into account in the calculation of the numbers which will avoid an increase in trafficking and the elimination of the young. This decision is a true relief and — let’s be optimistic — should put an end to the long years of fighting before the administrative courts.

However, we are winning the battle but not yet the war: a new ministerial decree must be passed in the coming weeks to apply new rules. We will take care of this scrupulously and will never hesitate to take legal action to ensure that animals’ voices are heard and respected!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

The Bargy ibex killed in 2019: the legal system rules in One Voice’s favour at the appeal

The Bargy ibex killed in 2019: the legal system rules in One Voice’s favour at the appeal
22.02.2023
Haute-Savoie
The Bargy ibex killed in 2019: the legal system rules in One Voice’s favour at the appeal
Wildlife

Four years later, the legal system has decided: the ibex slaughtered were done so illegally. And yet the State persists in continuing to kill these animals every year. Our plea filed against the 2022 decree is still ongoing. We will never abandon the Bargy ibex.

It was a positive sign that we received this February for the ibex on the Bargy mountain range (almost four years later)! In recent years in Haute-Savoie, prefectural decrees authorising slaughtering have not stopped coming. Nothing seems to stop the authorities: neither the inefficiency of these shots, nor the fact that these animals are protected by the Bern Convention…

A victory in retrospect that validates our stance and is encouraging for the future

In 2019, the Prefect authorised the capture and ‘euthanasia’ of 50 ibex that tested positive for brucellosis and ordered the indiscriminate slaughter of 20 others, leading to pressure from farmers worried about the supposed risk of contamination of their cows.

Of course, we flew to the aid of these agile animals. After a misunderstanding about our interest to act at the Grenoble Administrative Tribunal which led to our cancellation request for the prefectural decree being rejected without a decision on its merits, the Lyon Administrative Court of Appeals this time proved us right. It thus not only requested the cancellation of the 2019 decree that we were fighting against, but also stated that any slaughter of ibex without prior screening would not be “the most satisfactory solution to reach the objectives that we are pursuing in order to preserve this protected species”.

Decrees to come: vigilance remains prudent

We are celebrating this decision which shows the way towards a more fair treatment of wild animals. So that ibex stop being victims of massacres, we will continue to rally as we have done since 2013.

In May 2022, we succeeded, alongside our partners, specifically in suspending a decree planning to put 170 individuals to death. And this autumn, we stood up against the slaughter of about sixty animals, starting the day after the publication of the decree. Confronted with this attempt to force it through, we were not able to file an emergency interim suspension proceeding in time (the tribunals were closed over the weekend and the decree was published at the end of the day on Friday). The Prefecture, on its side, hastened to repeal its decree before the urgent hearing. The annulment request is ongoing and we are waiting for a date for the hearing.

Together, we will persist in fighting against decrees that attack the Bargy ibex in the hope that justice will return more and more rulings in their favour. And if possible, before the animals in question are killed…

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Nouveau Cirque Triomphe’s sleight of hand tricks partly condemned by the legal system

Nouveau Cirque Triomphe’s sleight of hand tricks partly condemned by the legal system
22.02.2023
France
Nouveau Cirque Triomphe’s sleight of hand tricks partly condemned by the legal system
Exploitation for shows

In these cases with labyrinthine family ramifications, the circus performers have deployed all of their talents as smooth-talkers. And if the scheming of the Gougeons has allowed them to fall back on their feet a hundred times, this time they have – partly – failed to slip through the net of justice, thanks to a One Voice investigation of several years. This investigation led us to all of this family’s circuses all over France, and even to the shop of a taxidermist who imports and exports wild animal products, one of the biggest types of trafficking worldwide.

Photo: Tarzan, Alexandre Blanchon/Tonga Terre d’Accueil

The Bourgoin-Jallieu and Bobigny magistrates’ courts have (finally) processed the files that we submitted in 2021… We are calling for an exemplary sanction for the trafficking led by the Gougeons, particularly at the Nouveau Cirque Triomphe, but also at the Cirque de Paris (where we got Jon, Patty, Marli, Céleste, and Hannah seized from), Cirque Idéal, and Italiano, where the family of circus trainers runs riot.

We have clearly established that the animals were kept illegally by various members of the family. Here, it was Joseph and Stéphane Gougeon, but also Guy Mordon, an uncle, implicated in the case (repeatedly postponed and then dealt with in Bourgoin-Jallieu), in which breeding was happening, and where a lion ended up in a shop selling ‘stuffed’ animals from all over Paris, a very lucrative trade.

Our lawyers collected and displayed our evidence obtained during an investigation that started in 2018 on a platter. However, the legal system decided otherwise. They did not take essential information into account. A missed opportunity.

Tarzan, a lion placed to hide others

Several lions were kept without a certificate of competency and had supposedly been placed in the Mordon Circus which also did not hold any authorisation; the identification of Jon, a skeletal and mutilated lion already saved and placed into a shelter by our team months before, was listed under Tarzan in the Nouveau Cirque Triomphe’s animal logbook… Under pressure from our relentless work, Tarzan was moved to the same place as Jon at Tonga Terre d’Accueil.

From all of this, in its 20 February 2023 decision, the Bourgoin-Jallieu tribunal only retained the fact that Tarzan was kept illegally. Only Stéphane Gougeon was convicted for non-authorised keeping of a non-domestic animal species with a four-month suspended prison sentence and damages to be paid. Nothing was held against Joseph Gougeon. As for Guy Mordon, he was released.

A case within a case: at twenty thousand euros for a lion skin… just a slap on the wrist

Finally, we found the unlicensed taxidermist who was working on behalf of the reseller to whom Joseph Gougeon took a lion carcass in 2019; we led an investigation and filed a complaint. The defendant was heard on Monday 20 February by the legal system. He admitted that he was guilty (a hearing with an appearance on prior admission of guilt). But the Bobigny Tribunal decided to close the file without even hearing our arguments.

We respect these decisions at the same time that we deplore them. A sign of the times: the rule of law, worn down, must make choices that are to the detriment of the voices we speak up for. However, nothing will stop us letting our fellow citizens, whatever their place in society may be, know what these animals in our country endure. We have not finished with our fight to defend them against exploitation, training, and being kept in captivity in circuses.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

We are seeking justice for the robins and Eurasian blackcaps being poached. The hearing is on 27 February in Toulon

We are seeking justice for the robins and Eurasian blackcaps being poached. The hearing is on 27 February in Toulon
21.02.2023
France
We are seeking justice for the robins and Eurasian blackcaps being poached. The hearing is on 27 February in Toulon
Wildlife

A man has been accused of having killed many robins and Eurasian blackcaps from November 2017 to October 2020. Sinister poaching acts of which he is also a repeat offender. One Voice will give the birds who are victims of these acts a voice on 27 February at the Toulon legal tribunal.

In September 2022, One Voice already filed a civil case in the matter of a retired farmer who had killed no fewer than 20 to 25 robins a day over the years and was making a lucrative trade from it. He was convicted.

On 27 February, justice will be sought for the robins and Eurasian blackcaps for whom we will go to the Toulon legal tribunal. The acts that the defendant is accused of are serious. Not only has he killed these poor birds over a very long period, from November 2017 to October 2020, but he has also already been convicted of this morbid activity! Additionally, he is also accused of having used a tape player to trick and attack these birds which is… forbidden.

The possibility that a man who was just convicted has been able to return to commit the same barbaric acts after hardly having left the court is shocking. It is therefore difficult to believe that the authorities have done everything that they can in this case to protect future potential victims. And this is not so surprising when we know the lack of importance that they give to birds.

Only in October 2022, the Ministry of Ecology re-implemented traditional hunting to trap larks, against the most recent decision by the State Council and the Court of Justice of the European Union, and even though birds are among the species most affected by the sixth mass extinction. For these animals, nothing ever seems to be definitively won and each victory is hard won, such as when the State Council finally ruled glue trapping as illegal in 2021. We will stop at nothing against poaching as well!

It is not normal that poachers are able to kill thousands of birds with impunity every year and each of these individuals deserves to live; therefore, One Voice is demanding that real deterrent measures be taken and real sanctions are given in the event of a conviction.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

February 2023: new figures on animal testing. Yet more animals and more suffering

February 2023: new figures on animal testing. Yet more animals and more suffering
15.02.2023
France
February 2023: new figures on animal testing. Yet more animals and more suffering
Animal testing

Each year, the figures on animal testing take time to be made public. On 14 February 2023, the data from 2021 has just been published by the Ministry of Research and will soon be available to consult through interactive graphs on One Voice’s specialist website. It is no big surprise that the number of animals being used is not going down while experiments involve more and more suffering.

Still this year, the statistical survey has arrived more than one year after the end of the year concerned. This kind of delay would be easily excused if it were not so frequent: from the lack of updates from the laboratories’ inspection vade mecum by the Ministry of Agriculture despite our requests and the lack of follow-up for serious and repeated problems, we are entitled to wonder if all of this is taken seriously.

A number of animals that does not get smaller

Since the middle of the 2000s, figures on animal testing were at almost 2 million uses per year*, scandalously high time and time again. After a misleading decline in 2020 due to lockdowns, it went back to the usual number in 2021: 1.9 million over the year.

Research goals have not changed: 90% of them are divided between fundamental or applied research, regulatory toxicity tests and the production of blood, antibodies, and other bodily substances.

Yet more suffering

Worse: animals’ pain does not stop intensifying. Experiments classed as ‘light’ have been reducing since 2015, while ‘moderate’ experiments are more and more abundant**. This is particularly true for rabbits, for which the total number and those suffering are surpassed every year.

And with 14% of experiments stated as ‘severe’, France is still the leader in this domain that involves significant and lasting anxiety and/or pain. This concerns zebrafish in particular, the number of which has multiplied by six since 2015, and of which a quarter of uses in 2021 were procedures of this magnitude.

Cats, dogs, primates still…

As in previous years, more than 1000 uses of cats, 4000 uses of dogs, and more than 3500 of primates were listed in 2021. The only element that gives vague hope: the number of dogs selectively bred as myopathy patients decreased further in 2021 to fifteen individuals.

When it comes to primates, almost all of them are long-tailed macaques, representatives of an endangered species for whom we are also fighting for on an international level. More than 600 are ‘F1’ macaques, which means that their parents had been captured in the wild…

When will we see the 2022 figures?

ALURES [Animal Use Reporting – EU System] revealed that the use of more than 4 million animals was authorised in 2022 in France – more than double compared with previous years! Even if this can likely be explained by the fact that laboratories largely overestimate the number of animals used in their projects to avoid administrative issues, this above all suggests a total lack of any desire to reduce the number of animals used.

Another worrying point: among these authorisations granted in 2022, six animals in ten will have to endure ‘moderate’ experiments and close to two in ten will have to endure ‘severe’ procedures. This amount is still higher than in 2021.

What is a ‘moderate’ experiment? It is, for example, a case of implanting electrodes in macaques’ skulls before making them stay for several hours per day for months in restraint chairs to measure what is happening in their brains. And severe? This can be infecting pigs with viruses that can give them serious pulmonary diseases to produce vaccines with the aim of maintaining farm profitability in the face of swine flu and other ailments that cause economical losses.

We are asking at the minimum for the authorities as an example to comply with the laws in force – particularly for true transparency on what happens in laboratories in our country – and an elaboration of a genuine exit plan for animal testing in France and Europe, alongside genuine funding for the development of non-animal research methods. Respecting the European directive is urgent.

The figures on animal testing in France

*Some animals are counted several times if they are reused in different projects during the same year. But with the general rate of reuse being very low, the number of animals used is not far from the number of uses listed.

**Regulations classify animal suffering in four categories: ‘non-recovery’ (experiments entirely under anaesthetic that end in the animal being put down), ‘mild, ‘moderate’, and ‘severe’. Examples of each category are available on our dedicated website.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

After foxes being hung… foxes stuffed?

After foxes being hung… foxes stuffed?
15.02.2023
Aisne
After foxes being hung… foxes stuffed?
Wildlife

Hunted down for their whole lives, humiliated to death: foxes suffer unbearable harassment which is maintained by the State and hunters leading to the worst indignities. On 8 February, One Voice received a new report of the desecration of a cadaver, stuffed this time, and in full view of everyone in the village of Berlancourt (02).

But what did foxes do to suffer such harassment?

After the bodies hung in Dracy-Saint-Loup and Vallet, on 8 February, we received a witness statement from a shocked walker after having found themselves face to face with a corpse abandoned by the side of a country road in Aisne.

With this fox still being there several weeks later, our witness had a closer look and was able to see that it was in all likelihood… stuffed. What explanation is there for this senseless act if not the pure and simple desire to reign terror in the countryside?

The State and hunters’ responsibility for the increase in these acts is immense: by dint of knowingly maintaining hatred against these animals related to dogs, despite them being intelligent and sociable and essential in maintaining biodiversity, they give free reign to the most despicable acts.

Because for foxes, life now can only be summed up as permanently trying to escape from hunters who are eager to exterminate them. Their obsession for these animals is matched only by the cruelty of the methods used to kill them.

Foxes can, of course, be hunted with guns during the hunting season. Like badgers, they can also be dug out from their burrows: dogs are sent underground and, once the foxes and their young are cornered, hunters dig holes in the ground to drag them out with the help of pincers before killing them, sometimes with a knife, sometimes with a gun, but always laughing at the pain these dying animals suffer.

But the massacring does not end there. Classified as a ‘species likely to cause damage’ in many departments, they can also be trapped with torture instruments that no longer have a place in our countryside (ovitraps, foot snares, or body-grip traps) but which litter the ground of the woodland and have many collateral victims.

And if this is not enough, prefects regularly authorise official hunts during which foxes can be massacred, and also their young. There is truly no limit to the cruelty.

Faced with the increase in these events, we are alerting the Mayor, Prefect, and the French Office of Biodiversity again: in the name of foxes, in the name of the safety of our countryside, we must act to identify the guilty party, punish them, and put an end to these despicable acts! Sign the petition so that foxes can be taken off the list of ‘species likely to cause damage’ (previously ‘pests’).

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

One Voice is taking to the streets to call for a true plan to make hunting safe and for a radical reform

One Voice is taking to the streets to call for a true plan to make hunting safe and for a radical reform
11.02.2023
France
One Voice is taking to the streets to call for a true plan to make hunting safe and for a radical reform
Wildlife

On Saturday 11 February, One Voice activists will be raising public awareness in Compiègne, Nantes, Angers, and Troyes. On Sunday 12 February, the same will be happening in Montpellier, Rouen, and Gap. On the following Saturday, on 18 February, it will happen in Lille, Annecy, Aix-en-Provence, Nice, and Bayonne. In Nice, Olivier Arnaubex, lawyer at Barreau de Nice and singer-songwriter as part of the LFA (Looking For Animals) group, is committed to the animal cause and will share his compositions during our audience participation event. Finally, on Saturday 11 March, the towns of Lyon, Paris, and La Rochelle will finish the series at the end of the hunting season.

Photo of the action led in Compiègne on the morning of Saturday 22 February 2023

Hunting in France: an exception as the worst among its neighbours

Penned hunting, gun or bow hunting, badger or fox digging, trapping, hunting with hounds… in the 21st century, all of these practices still exist! Hunting in France: there are between 6,000 and 8,000 tonnes of lead in the wild, 20 million animals coming from breeding farms to be released and slaughtered, 45 million animals slaughtered each year, and 90 species of animals killed each year! France is, at any rate, the country that hunts the most types of species.

One Voice has opposed it for years and tries to make changes to the mentalities in France by demonstrating the suffering of the animals, the absurdity of the practice, and the collateral damage that hunting brings about.

From a human perspective, the government plan falls short of societal expectations

With their plan to make hunting safer, the government is proposing measures that are far from the expectations of the French population who would like to benefit from the countryside and the great outdoors without risking their lives. One Voice is reporting on the dramatic under-sizing of government propositions in relation to the stakes. It will take a radical reform on hunting, not small measures that are once again insulting to grieving families and to biodiversity which is being wiped out before our eyes.

The lack of political desire to change anything is such a pity. The animal and human deaths accrued still do not hold up against the lobby; we wonder how it still manages to dictate its own laws when it represents such a small minority. Country people as well as city-dwellers are more than fed up!

For wild boars, foxes, badgers, does, roebuck, fallow deer, rabbits, and all birds in our woodlands and countryside, but also for measures worthy of this name for humans, thus guaranteeing the safety of everyone, we will be in 15 French towns during weekends in February and March 2023.

	Town and date	Precise Location	Time
5	Gap 12/02	Domaine de Charence	2:30pm to 4:30pm
6	Nice 18/02	Place Magenta	11:00am to 1:00pm
8	Troyes 11/02	71 Rue Emile Zola	3:30pm to 5:00pm
13	Aix-en-Provence 18/02	Allées de Provence	10:30am to 12:00pm
17	La Rochelle 11 Mars	Place de l’hôtel de ville	2:30pm to 5:00pm
34	Montpellier 12/02	Place de la Comédie	11:00am to 1:00pm
44	Nantes 11/02	Pace à Royale	3pm to 5pm
49	Angers 11/02	Rue Lenepveu	3:00pm to 4:30pm
59	Lille 18/02	Place Richebé	2:30pm to 4:00pm
64	Bayonne 18/02	Carreau des Halles	2:30pm to 5:00pm
69	Lyon 11 Mars	Place St Jean	2:30pm to 5:00pm
74	Annecy 18/02	Mail centre	2:30pm to 4:30pm
75	Paris 11 Mars	Place de l’Hôtel de ville	2:00pm to 3:30pm
76	Rouen 12/02	Place de la Cathédrale	2:30pm to 4:00pm
80	Compiègne 11/02	Place de l’hôtel de ville	8:00am to 12:00pm

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Jumbo in his skip, tigers in a lorry… The Muller/Zavatta Circus is setting up in Cannes

Jumbo in his skip, tigers in a lorry… The Muller/Zavatta Circus is setting up in Cannes
10.02.2023
Alpes-Maritimes
Jumbo in his skip, tigers in a lorry… The Muller/Zavatta Circus is setting up in Cannes
Exploitation for shows

One Voice has learnt about the set-up of the Muller/Zavatta Circus in Cannes. The town council has banned them from exhibiting animals in shows. Fifteen days in a lorry: does absence make the heart grow fonder? Nothing is less certain, since in reality this contravenes the law that requires non-domestic animals to be taken out of the lorry for several hours a day AND participate in the show. In any case, it does not change anything for Jumbo or for the lions or tigers… We are writing to David Lisnard, the mayor of Cannes.

Photo: Young lion, Muller/Zavatta Circus, Martigues January 2023

The Muller Circus changes its name as it pleases in order to settle wherever it goes, causing confusion and making any control operations by competent authorities difficult. It could become – and this list is not exhaustive – Canadian Circus, 100% Cirque, 100% Humain [Human] (which is laughable as this circus is based on animal exploitation), and lastly the Zavatta Circus.

Recently, it is definitely the Muller family who has renamed themselves: Franck Muller masquerading as the grandson of Achille Zavatta and calling himself John Zavatta. And why stop at that? Jumbo, the hippopotamus exploited for decades, has become Mooglie.

The Cannes town council’s very subtle decision

The decision by the Cannes town council, having been told by the circus that the animals do not participate in shows, is a bit fleeting… because problems remain and this solution actually adds another one:

The Muller-Zavatta Circus will remain, along with the animals they keep, on the town’s land;
the animals will continue to be subjected to being permanently enclosed in cramped and unsuitable cages, encouraging the development of stereotypies, boredom, and stress;
finally, this decision goes against the provisions of the 18 March 2011 decree (article 9) which authorises non-domestic animals to be kept in circuses ONLY
if the animals actually participate in shows.

One Voice finds it regrettable that animals from the Muller/Zavatta Circus will be continually kept in establishments incapable of responding to their most basic physiological needs, particularly with regard to the – emblematic – case of Jumbo the hippopotamus, an amphibious animal, kept in completely unsuitable conditions.

How many examples do we have of circuses with animals in which pseudo-fires have caused the logbook to go up in smoke or of it being stolen from a vehicle – as if a passer-by, noticing that a register of the comings and goings of animals is lying around on the back shelf, was going to hasten to break a window to be able to steal it…?

Animals are victims until the very end

Non-conforming living conditions for the animals, animals in a bad state of health, a lack of traceability of the animals’ movements, a lack of keeping proper logs for health and for the comings and goings of the animals, non-compliance with identification and registration requirements, disrespect for permissions to keep animals, to open, and to present them to the public… For more than twenty years and despite changes in regulations over time, One Voice has not stopped alerting the authorities about the constant infractions of the regulations within circuses and the lack of inspections.

The fate of hundreds of animals living in circuses today in France cannot be resolved overnight. It requires preparation and discussions to effectively apply prohibitions provided for by the law. Since the vote on it in 2021, which will hardly change anything, the government has turned a deaf ear to any requests for steps forward and no implementing decree is yet to be published. Those who pay the highest price for this, once again, are the animals. Let’s hope that their fate will be discussed at the next Cannes Town Council meeting on Monday 13 February.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Banned for thirty years, leghold traps have found a new victim: Cooper

Banned for thirty years, leghold traps have found a new victim: Cooper
10.02.2023
France
Banned for thirty years, leghold traps have found a new victim: Cooper
Domestic animals

On 23 January, Cooper was found injured. The border collie had his front right leg stuck in a leghold trap. These non-selective hunting devices have actually been banned in Europe since 1995. It is unbearable that almost thirty years later, animals continue to be victims of them. One Voice is filing a complaint for him.

This Monday could have been a day like any other for this five-year-old dog. But instead of returning to enjoy a nap on the porch of his house after his morning walk, Cooper found himself imprisoned in a leghold trap hidden among some straw after the deadly trap abruptly closed around his front leg. It was the police who discovered him like this, injured and immobilised, and let his owner know. He was taken to the vets urgently with an exposed joint and a torn tendon and had to be sedated while his wounds were sutured. When he left the next day, he had five days of medication to take!

Although Cooper was found and treated in time, you can hardly imagine the terror and pain he had to endure while he was kept prisoner. And all this for what? Because of traps mutilating and killing animals without discrimination, despite being banned in the whole of the European Union since 1995! What was this trap doing there? What’s more, it was placed near a path where a walker could have gone. As well as being illegal and dangerous for all animals, both wild and domestic, and humans, laying it shows great cruelty. One Voice is filing a complaint against X following the injuries inflicted on Cooper, and will represent themselves as well as the Sans-Voix d’Eden Association who alerted them to the situation, and Cooper’s family. The two associations have also covered the veterinary costs.

In 2018, One Voice already asked for a ban on these traps that massacre animals without any distinction, whether they are wild, domestic, or protected. It is high time that hunting is radically reformed and that its most cruel practices are banned as a matter of urgency.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

The Council of Europe supports the end of pyrogen testing on rabbits

The Council of Europe supports the end of pyrogen testing on rabbits
09.02.2023
Europe
The Council of Europe supports the end of pyrogen testing on rabbits
Animal testing

More than twenty years after the creation of in vitro alternatives to these tests and more than fifteen years after their approval, rabbits are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel: pyrogen tests will soon be ancient history in Europe. A decision that will be discussed in detail at a conference being held in mid-February in Brussels. But the data that we have collected shows that France is still refusing this progress. One Voice condemns the inaction of public authorities.

«Not only do tens of thousands of rabbits suffer for tests for which alternatives exist, but, additionally, laboratories mislead the public by telling them that between experiments, rabbits move around ‘freely’ when they hardly have space to move. The same rabbits that die without knowing the feel of soft grass or sunshine.» Muriel Arnal, President of One Voice

Pyrogen tests consist of injecting a substance into rabbits’ ears and measuring the onset of fever before slaughtering them. From 14 to 16 February 2023, European authorities have organised a conference for industrialists and public authorities. The purpose? To promote and support the end of the use of rabbits and them being replaces with in vitro alternatives carried out on human blood components: Monocyte Activation Tests (MAT).

While replacing these protocols with non-animal alternatives has been possible for around fifteen years, they have not been implemented. French researchers have shown to be particularly unwilling, using and even killing more and more rabbits between 2015 and 2019 for these tests while, at the same time, other countries are reducing the use of them. Progress which reflects the continued increase in the number of rabbits exploited in French laboratories and the suffering that they endure there, all uses combined.

France is persisting and signing

And this is not the end: last year, the Ministry of Research published a project based on ALURES European data which predicts the use of almost 40,000 rabbits in five years for pyrogen tests. But the summary reassures us: they can “move freely around the whole cage”… a metal cage in which they can hardly turn around.

Due to the suffering that it causes, the Rural Code plans to limit animal testing to cases of “strict necessity”. Are industrial interests considered as such? The Council of Europe conference will perhaps provide some answers…

The public is waiting for true engagement

The development of the European Pharmacopoeia resonates with recent European and international news. In fact, at the end of December, the United States have passed a law approving medications being put on the market without having to use tests on animals: a great step forward, which opens the way to the development and application of alternative methods. And at the end of January, more than 1.2 million signatures were submitted for the “Save Cruelty Free Cosmetics” European Citizens’ Initiative. 2023 therefore promises to be important in the fight against laboratories exploiting animals.

Do not hesitate to consult our website dedicated to the figures and to recently authorised experiments.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice