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Charles Vinick, a man doing his bit for orcas

Charles Vinick, a man doing his bit for orcas

Charles Vinick, a man doing his bit for orcas
21.03.2021
Charles Vinick, a man doing his bit for orcas
Dolphinariums

This environmentalist, a specialist in the marine world, was still young when heanswered the call of the sea and of orcas. Having had the opportunity to roam theoceans freely, he feels privileged in comparison with cetaceans held prisoner indolphinariums. Today he works for a better future for them. We have recorded histestimony, which is fascinating

The sea is where he feels most at home. For twenty-five years Charles Vinick roamed the oceans with Captain Cousteau and his son Jean-Michel. Alongside them, he encouraged exploration of the marine world. Subsequently his skills led him to carry out many missions, all of them dedicated to the sea and the creatures living in it.

A real expert

Amongst the many hats he has worn have been those of adviser to and cofounder of the Cousteau Centres; Vice-Chairman of the Institut Jean-Michel Cousteau and of the Ocean Futures Society, which have produced educational resources and films about the ocean and the environment; President and CEO of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound; Chairman and CEO of two environmental technology societies, in Florida and Santa Barbara. Charles has also been Chairman and CEO of the Santa Barbara City College Foundation, director of training and development at TRW Inc. and executive director of adult education at the University of Southern California.

Founder of a sanctuary for captive cetaceans

Today, still full of boundless energy, Charles Vinick provides his services to the cetaceans suffering in dolphinariums. He sits on the boards of directors of Heal the Ocean and the Ocean Futures Society and in mid-2016 joined the Whale Sanctuary Project as executive director. The aim of this amazing project is to set up sanctuaries on the coasts of North America for orcas and belugas held captive by the leisure industry.

It’s the incredible members of the team he led who really did ‘Free Willy’

It’s an enormous challenge. Whereas numerous sanctuaries provide homes for terrestrial animals liberated from circuses or zoos, there is as yet nothing comparable for marine mammals. But Charles Vinick is no novice when it comes to rehabilitating former captive cetaceans. In 2019 he took part in the scientific expedition to save the orcas and belugas held in the Baie of Srednyaya, in Russia. We immediately answered the call to help him. It must be said that Charles acquired extraordinary experience with Keiko, the most famous male orca on the planet and better known by the name of Willy in the film Free Willy. It was he who accompanied the animal, who had been snatched from his family when very young, on the long road back to the wild. An astonishing adventure, stranger than fiction … Charles told us about it in detail in this interview, which is essential listening.

translated by Patricia Fairey MCIL

Glue-trap hunting: the Court of Justice of the European Union comes to the rescue of birds!

Glue-trap hunting: the Court of Justice of the European Union comes to the rescue of birds!

Glue-trap hunting: the Court of Justice of the European Union comes to the rescue of birds!
17.03.2021
Glue-trap hunting: the Court of Justice of the European Union comes to the rescue of birds!
Hunting

We were at the Court of Justice of the European Union on Thursday, November 19, 2020 to hear the submissions of the assistant public prosecutor following our complaint to Europe as part of our appeals to the Council of State on the 2018 and 2019 glue-trap hunting in France. Today, Wednesday March 17, the European Court handed down its decision, and it goes our way: it supports the birds! They needed it so badly.

End of playtime for blackbird and thrush gluers!

A great victory! Following in the footsteps of Spain, Malta and Cyprus, where the tradition of glue-trap hunting was also firmly established, the European Court of Justice has ruled that glue-trap hunting must come to an end in France too, and not just by reducing the quota to zero.

According to the European Court of Justice,

“A Member State cannot authorize a method of capturing birds which results in by-catches if it is likely to cause other than negligible damage to the species concerned. The traditional nature of a method of capturing birds, such as hunting with glue, is not in itself sufficient to establish that no other satisfactory solution can be substituted for it”.

“For the hunters who had fun gluing robins, blackbirds and song thrushes to eat them, it’s the end of playtime! This magnificent victory shows just how important it is never to give in to this lobby, which is so entrenched in its cruel and destructive practices. The fight for birds is not over, they remain threatened by other traditional hunts. We’ll be there!”

Muriel Arnal, President of One Voice

As we’ve explained many times over the years, hunting with glue is cruel, because the birds are stuck to the branches where, in panic, they struggle, plucking feathers and breaking limbs. It is also non-selective, meaning that it traps all birds that land, and not just those of the species that the hunters want to capture to make them endure a life in captivity as decoy-birds.

A “cultural importance” that just doesn’t measure up

The Court did not follow the opinion of the assistant public prosecutor. For the European Court, “It is very likely […] that the birds captured will suffer irreversible damage, the birdlime being, by its very nature, liable to damage the plumage of all the birds captured.”

In this decision, the gluing process is clearly condemned. Regional tradition is therefore not in itself a criterion for derogating from the European Birds Directive. Capture with glue damages the plumage of the birds captured, and is therefore prohibited. The EU Court of Justice does not require certainty: the very fact that this hunting method can kill or cripple them is sufficient. In the end, the technique is condemned as much as the tradition.

We’ll soon be before the Council of State again

We said it was up to the hunters to prove that glue-trap hunting did not harm birds. In the end, the hunters’ argument that they were releasing birds of non-targeted species was swept aside… Because, in fact, glue does not make any selection between birds! So there is real hope for birds affected by other types of hunting, particularly traditional hunting!

Now it’s up to the Council of State, a national jurisdiction, to take a stand.

Read the press release from the Court of Justice of the European Union