News Archive - Page 60 of 146

One Voice is rallying throughout France to stop fur being sold in Europe!

One Voice is rallying throughout France to stop fur being sold in Europe!
11.01.2023
France
One Voice is rallying throughout France to stop fur being sold in Europe!
Fashion

One year after the closure of the last mink farm in France, and with it the end of fur production in our country, it is time to say farewell to this cruel industry in the whole of Europe!
Supported by One Voice, the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) for a ban on the production and marketing of fur in all member states has already reached a million signatures! The collection of European citizens’ signatures will end on 18 May; we must ensure that 500,000 additional people get involved for these animals.
One Voice is organising coordinated action in a dozen towns in France on the weekend of 14 and 15 January. They will also participate in their partners’ action in front of the Samaritaine [department store] in Paris, to put an end to this deadly fad in Europe.

Supported by One Voice, the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) for a ban on the production and marketing of fur in all member states has already reached a million signatures! The collection of European citizens’ signatures will end on 18 May; we must ensure that 500,000 additional people get involved for these animals.

One Voice is organising coordinated action in a dozen towns in France on the weekend of 14 and 15 January. They will also participate in their partners’ action in front of the Samaritaine [department store] in Paris, to put an end to this deadly fad in Europe.

	Towns	Event	Address	Time
04	Forcalquier	https://www.facebook.com/events/525268119374214/	Place du Bourget	2:30pm to 4:30pm on 15 January
06	Nice	https://www.facebook.com/events/2669284793207147	Place Massena	11am to 1pm on 14 January
10	Troyes	https://www.facebook.com/events/968142997482937?	71 Rue Émile Zola	3:30pm to 5:30pm on 14 January
13	Aix-en-Provence	https://www.facebook.com/events/676888010846599/	Allées de Provence	11am to 12pm on 28 January (note the change of date)
33	Bordeaux	https://www.facebook.com/events/1362640897825211	Place de la Comédie	2:30pm to 5pm on 15 January
34	Montpellier	https://www.facebook.com/events/2548597101957566/	Place de la Comédie	2:30pm to 4pm on 14 January
44	Nantes	https://www.facebook.com/events/897997564704349/	Place du change	3:20pm to 5pm on 28 January
59	Lille	https://www.facebook.com/events/692278982478913	Place Richebé	11:30am to 1pm on 14 January
64	Bayonne	https://www.facebook.com/events/1560352084375762	Carreau des Halles	3:30pm to 5pm on 14 January
69	Lyon	https://www.facebook.com/events/2418294038319216	Place St Jean	2:30pm to 5pm on 29 January
75	Paris:	https://www.facebook.com/events/1163816727609309	Pont Neuf	3pm to 4:30pm on 14 January
80	Amiens	https://www.facebook.com/events/699342655062772	Place René Goblet	1:30pm to 4pm on 28 January (note the change of date)

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

A dying fox, a walker threatened: will the ‘trapper’ soon be identified?

A dying fox, a walker threatened: will the ‘trapper’ soon be identified?
10.01.2023
France
A dying fox, a walker threatened: will the ‘trapper’ soon be identified?
Wildlife

After having received a witness statement from a shocked walker, and faced with the initial lack of reaction from the authorities, we have intervened to bring the unacceptable behaviour of a fox trapper, who has openly threatened this whistle-blower and subjected a fox to particularly cruel acts before killing it, to their attention. While these cousins of dogs are victims of an unbearable persecution, we will remain fully committed so that the investigation will allow the suspect to be identified and brought to justice.

One Voice’s action, crucial to launch the investigation

At the beginning of December, during a walk during which she simply wanted to benefit from nature, a woman found herself face to face with a panicked, dying fox with its paw in a foot snare trap, undoubtedly for several hours. Looking to come to its aid, she was violently challenged by the trapper who did not hesitate to insult her before threatening her, gun in hand. Additional proof, if there is any need for it, of hunters’ feeling of total impunity. The walker had to resign herself and step aside. The man then fired a first bullet at the fox, without killing it… Was this to prolong its suffering and benefit for the longest time possible from his hobby? The poor animal had to endure a few long seconds before it was finally put out of its misery.

While the initial report to local police seemed to go unheeded, we intervened to report these particularly serious facts and to demand a quick response against these acts of cruelty.

This decisive action allowed some progress: at the start of January, supported by our local point of contact, the walker was interviewed at the police station. An investigation was launched on three counts: illegal trapping, threats, and acts of cruelty towards an animal. She will, hopefully, be able to identify the trapper so that he can answer for his actions.

One Voice fully committed for foxes

For many years, we have reported on the fate reserved for foxes in France. Classified nationally as a ‘species likely to cause damage’, they are perpetually massacred. They are the subject of the most cruel hunts: horse and hound hunting, night hunts, underground hunting with hounds. Hunters do not hesitate to attack foxes, held on the ground before being violently killed, sometimes with metal clamps on their heads.

Red foxes are sensitive and intelligent beings who, like all animals, deserve to be protected. Nothing can justify the persecution and massacring that they are victims of. Faced with repeated attacks by hunters to kill more and more animals by resorting to the most unbearable methods, we are repeating our appeal for a radical reform of hunting, and will continue to intervene whenever necessary to give foxes a voice. Together, let’s demand that foxes be removed from the list of species likely to cause damage (formerly ‘pests’).

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Lack of safety in hunting: hunters 1, others 0

Lack of safety in hunting: hunters 1, others 0
09.01.2023
Lack of safety in hunting: hunters 1, others 0

While 4 in 5 French people are favourable towards a ban on hunting on Sundays, the day when the largest number of accidents linked to this hobby are reported, the State prefers to strengthen the interests of a dangerously armed minority: an app-gadget to signal horse and hound hunts is not only anti-democratic, it is also to the advantage of hunters who will have their sense of ownership of nature and biodiversity reinforced.

Against the overwhelming majority of French people in favour of stopping hunting on a Sunday (78%*), the hunting lobby offers ridiculous gadgets and refuses any progression. And what is the State doing? It is listening to the lobby.

In response to the problem of a lack of safety linked to their hobby, hunters offer an app that is just as useless as it is dangerous. They are already struggling to put ‘hunting in progress’ signs up properly; we wonder how an app, with all the eventualities that this involves (having a smartphone, signal, etc.) could be shown to be effective.

With this tool, hunters would signal to walkers, urging them to avoid ‘danger bubbles’ — in reality these areas are much larger than indicated, given the range of weapons — and to head towards ‘safe’ zones.

But everything rings untrue:

There is no signal in many natural zones affected by hunting;
The app is not compulsory and will only relate to the hunts;
It assumes that all hunters and walkers have a smartphone, and that they would systematically think to go onto the app;
A single hunter could find themselves outside of the ‘danger bubble’ indicated;
Such a gadget gives a false impression of safety to walkers, and would above all give hunters a clear conscience, who would feel free from any constraints and responsibility: in the event of an accident, who would be responsible? Victims or hunters?
What would happen if a walker, in the middle of their hike, received an alert to signal that a hunt was about to start around them?

In reality, this app would do nothing but reinforce the dominance of hunters over nature and make this dangerous (or even deadly, for other people) ‘hobby’ legitimate. In summary, the message is “Clear off, we are hunting! ”.

Sundays without hunting was brought in in England in 1831, and nowadays in numerous other countries in Europe (the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Portugal…) observing at least one national hunt-free day. But not in France, where the powerful hunting lobby has been imposing their diktat for decades, when they do not even represent 2% of the population.

In short, rather than restricting hunting, the government prefers to restrict the freedom of others: French people have no other choice than to zigzag between the ‘danger bubbles’, or to stay at home, as already recommended by the head of the Fédération nationale des chasseurs [National Federation of Hunters]… Did you say democracy?

Associations that have signed:
Animal Cross, ASPAS, Fondation Brigitte Bardot, Humanité & Biodiversité, LPO, One Voice, SFEPM, Stéphane Lamart, Un Jour Un Chasseur, WWF

*IFOP survey, December 2022

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Safety in hunting: One Voice reports on an umpteenth smokescreen

Safety in hunting: One Voice reports on an umpteenth smokescreen
06.01.2023
France
Safety in hunting: One Voice reports on an umpteenth smokescreen
Wildlife

When animal killers become just killers, the government offers Canada Dry, far from the expectations and despair of the French population who would like to benefit from nature and the great outdoors (the bit that is left) without risking their lives. One Voice is reporting on the dramatic under-sizing of government propositions that are taking shape in relation to the stakes. What it will take is 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.

From the elusive to Canada Dry…

At the end of October 2022, Bérangère Couillard, the Secretary of State in charge of Ecology and therefore the hunting file, implemented a consultation – what made this necessary..? Because these announcements about hunting management are elusive… We thought that there would be a bill after the efficacy of the petition filed on the Senate’s site by the One Day A Hunter [Un Jour Un Chasseur] collective, then from our hearing at the Senators’ mandate… But no, still no immediate decisions.

On Monday, the Minister announced the result of this consultation. It involved, among other things, limiting hunters’ blood alcohol levels, a minimum measure which French people were gobsmacked by in the autumn when no restrictions had so far been imposed in this plan for people who were nevertheless armed in the countryside. A request that One Voice has been bringing up for many years, just like annual eye check-ups…

Another of the measures expected by more than four in five French people to make hunting in France safe (a stable proportion for five years: see the three rounds of the IPSOS/One Voice survey in 2018, 2021, and 2022), is a hunting ban during the whole of the school holidays as well as for two days a week including Sundays.
Instead of this, the government is delivering a gadget, an application called ‘Suricate’ (they will tell us that just this once it is not a freephone number) which, if it did not concern the lives and deaths of others, would be laughable.

A hunting and gunmakers’ lobby that is stronger than safety and biodiversity

The lack of any political desire to change anything is such a pity. The accumulated deaths of animals and humans still do not measure up to a lobby for which we wonder how they still manage to dictate their own laws when they represent such a small minority. Country people as well as city-dwellers are more than fed up!

What can we still expect from a government that is not even capable of listening to the population? To keep them safe?
Horse and hound hunting is still happening, as well as underground hunting with hounds, penned hunting, and wild boar breeding farms, or deer being released to be killed. The French President even lowered the price of hunting licences by half during his first mandate! And the Ministry has opposed us so many times at the State Council to keep and justify the massacring of birds with cruel glue hunting traps and other traditional hunting methods…

If the great advances for biodiversity in general and animals in particular come down to plastic fast-food packaging and an app, we are far from the hopes raised by the ‘Make our planet great again’ from the beginning of Macron I.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

For the closing down of a colony of baboons at the University of Murcia

For the closing down of a colony of baboons at the University of Murcia
05.01.2023
Murcia
For the closing down of a colony of baboons at the University of Murcia
Animal testing

Stop Camarles, One Voice’s Spanish partner, has just revealed a video of the conditions that beagles and baboons are being kept in at a Spanish university where toxic products are being injected into the brains of monkeys and pig organs are being transplanted onto them. Along with us, call for this colony of baboons in Murcia to be closed down.

On 12 October, a baboon escaped from the cage in which it was being kept by the university. After having crossed the motorway and travelled from roof to roof, he was recaptured, hit with a tranquilliser dart, then taken back to the cage.

In response to this ‘incident’, One Voice is naturally working with the Spanish association Stop Camarles (with whom we are already partners for many projects involving primates destined for laboratories) and fifteen other associations worldwide to ask the ethical committee at this university and Spanish ministries to get this colony of baboons closed and to supervise the transfer of the animals to a sanctuary who could meet their needs without subjecting them to gruesome experiments.

The university will not even respect the regulations…

Yesterday morning, Stop Camarles revealed new images and videos, which show the dog kennels and monkey cages.

generics.video.play

The one that escaped in October could, for the first time, feel the grass under his feet and climb real trees. Forcibly returned to the cage, he will have to, like dozens of other members of the colony, be content with a hanging tyre and a few platforms fixed onto the wire mesh.

The overcrowding is blatant. [Edit from 19 January 2023] Not to mention that keeping such different species such as baboons and beagles in such close proximity could potentially create stress that is easily avoidable for individuals from both species.

Baboons’ fate

Like the majority of science universities, this university in the south-east of Spain particularly offers courses in veterinary practice, biology, and biochemistry, interspersed with practical work involving live animals. And research using baboons is no more pleasing. Many of them were exploited here in the 2000s to study the xenotransplantation of pigs’ organs (a practice that has been condemned for a long time).

More recently, in 2019 and 2020, two articles were published by the University of Murcia in collaboration with French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Quatari counterparts. Here we discovered that more than thirty baboons from this colony had been injected in the brain with products (or had been used as controls) to create the appearance of dementia to be observed for two years, before all being killed for analysis of said brains…

Help us to put an end to these practices

We have started a petition along with Stop Camarles, Action for Primates, and PETA to demand the closure of this baboon colony at the University of Murcia and for the animals to be transferred to a suitable sanctuary. You can sign this petition and share it on social media in order to support our request and encourage Spanish authorities to respond to it favourably.

I demand the closure of the baboon colony in Murcia

These animal testing practices exist in Spain but also in France. You can consult our website dedicated to the figures and to recently authorised experiments for more information.

If you have witnessed practices that outrage you, do not hesitate to oppose them (as the students at the University of Strasbourg did recently, thanks to whom lab work using live hamsters will not be repeated next year) and to contact us to give your witness statement.

Open letter to Fabien Di Filippo regarding the fate of dogs neglected by the management at Arche de Bouba

Open letter to Fabien Di Filippo regarding the fate of dogs neglected by the management at Arche de Bouba
05.01.2023
France
Open letter to Fabien Di Filippo regarding the fate of dogs neglected by the management at Arche de Bouba
Domestic animals

One Voice has been alerted to the fact that the management at the Ranguevaux pound-rescue, Arche de Bouba, might be operating at different sites in several departments: the town of Nitting in Moselle and Sainte-Menehould in Marne. After joining the Moselle Prefecture, we contacted Mr Fabien Di Filippo, the deputy of the fourth constituency of this department, in order to ask him to implement measures to help rescue dogs who will be abandoned in this miserable place. We are also writing to the Marne Prefecture in order to ensure that no animal can be kept in this place in Sainte-Menehould any longer.

Photo DR

Deputy
Fabien Di Filippo
National Assembly
126, rue de l’Université
75007 Paris

Vannes, 5 January 2023

Subject: Pound-rescue in Ranguevaux – Arche de Bouba

Dear Deputy,

You have surely been made aware of the latest facts relating to the matter of the Ranguevaux pound-rescue (57700), which has now been around for several years and which perfectly illustrates the lack of respect given to animals suffering under public powers in France.

The calvary of several sick animals (fleas, worms, coryza, typhus, feline infectious peritonitis, feline immunodeficiency virus) needing urgent treatment, abandoned and kept in a place that is more like a rubbish tip than a pound, ended on Monday 26 December. The police, accompanied by an animal protection association and elected representatives from the town of Ranguevaux, were able to obtain their transfer to another organisation. Unfortunately, as reported in the regional media, some will not have survived and will have died with no concern.

With the Ranguevaux pound already being known unfavourably by the Moselle Prefecture’s veterinary services for several years, this situation could and should have been avoided.

Several dozen animals have already been taken there over time, suspensions of activities had been ordered, and the management had even been convicted of animal abuse and deceptive commercial practice.

It is unbearable that this pound-rescue’s activities are able to continue. What are the relevant authorities waiting for to get this place definitively closed? How many innocent animals are still going to suffer in agony for public authorities to make the necessary decisions?

Even if the surviving cats could have left this hell, One Voice had been warned of the fact that the dogs belonging to the management would themselves be kept in revolting conditions at another site in the town of Nitting, part of your constituency. Around ten dogs will effectively be kept in an unsanitary cabin as well as in kennels and on a veranda, and will only be fed two or three times a week because no daily human presence is guaranteed here.

Additionally, we have been informed of the fact that you would have known about these dogs’ situation and that you have refused to react to it, all while approving the words of an elected official who had stated: “They are only animals”.

If this is the case, One Voice would like to know your position on the situation, as well as the actions that you intend to take so that the animals that are still on-site can be rescued quickly, and above all, to get this place closed, which should have been done a long time ago.

We thank you for your attention to this request and await your response. Deputy, please accept our sincere regards.

Muriel Arnal,
One Voice President

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

In breach of the law, a pet shop is still offering animals for sale without giving time for consideration

In breach of the law, a pet shop is still offering animals for sale without giving time for consideration
03.01.2023
Bretagne
In breach of the law, a pet shop is still offering animals for sale without giving time for consideration
Domestic animals

From 1 October 2022, the implementation of a commitment and knowledge certification arising from the law against animal abuse should enforce anyone adopting or buying a pet to wait at least seven days from the signature of said certificate and them acquiring a dog, cat, ferret, gerbil, rat, or rabbit. Yet this is not the case! In a pet shop in Brittany, from where a whistle-blower who was aware of our involvement for pet animals entrusted us with a recording, and without a doubt in many other pet shops in France, it is still possible to leave with ‘their’ ‘pet’ animal the same day in complete violation of the law! Together let’s say: “Pet shops: I refuse! ”

A law voted in straight away and immediately evaded!

We already had serious reasons to doubt the scope of the law against animal abuse announced on 30 November 2021. Entrusted to our team just before Christmas, the recording of a surreal exchange between an employee of a pet shop in Brittany and a woman explaining her desire to get a dog shows that, if need be, the commitment and knowledge certification included in the law was nothing but another gimmick, quite incapable of preventing the compulsive purchase of a sentient being.

A wait of an hour instead of a week to obtain their animal-thing

In this pet shop, the client only waited “a good hour” from the moment when they set their sights on what they simply considered to be a cute “ball of fluff”, to the moment they left the shop with their animal-thing in their possession. The time that the employees took to do the paperwork. Say goodbye to the seven days of reflection imposed by law. It was enough for the client to sign another certificate, provided by the pet shop, to “waive the wait set by the law” under the pretext that five minutes of discussion with a salesperson and a few papers would allow them to have sufficient knowledge on the animal that was about to be bought, and that they are completely aware that this purchase is in reality an adoption and therefore a lifetime commitment.

How do we know that this outlandish exchange was an exception? Who will ensure that these worthless certificates have actually been provided and signed, if not the salesperson and the pet shop that employs them, who can visibly evade the law without a second thought? And what is the point of these signatures anyway if it is possible to edit disclaimers at leisure?

Pet shops? I refuse!

Because of classified adverts and pet shops, which turn animals into merchandise like anything else in the consumer system, rescue centres are overflowing with cats and dogs waiting desperately to be adopted by a loving family, while many of them have been victims of abandonment.

We maintain that, out of respect for animals, rescue centres must be preferred over pet shops. Choose a real meeting between an adoptive family and an animal, and adoption after a carefully considered decision, rather than an impulse buy of a sensitive and dependent being who they will not necessarily have the means to look after in the long-term. In April 2022, in Nice, as part of our “Pet shops: I refuse!” campaign, our local branch had already led shock action to report unlawful pet shops that continued to display cats and dogs in the window like common trinkets destined to lure consumers in.

This situation cannot continue! Report any unlawful pet shop to us until these places that objectify animals stop their activities in 2024. Sign our petition to protect our canine and feline companions so that they will no longer be treated as objects. Together, let’s also call for an urgent plan against feline straying

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

A pound offends again despite serious and ongoing malfunctions

A pound offends again despite serious and ongoing malfunctions
29.12.2022
Moselle
A pound offends again despite serious and ongoing malfunctions
Domestic animals

One Voice has received several worrying reports regarding the Ranguevaux pound-shelter in Moselle, where cats taken in a few days before Christmas were dropped off and deprived of care despite being in a catastrophic state of health. The matter seems to have been resolved, but this event turns the spotlight on a permanent problem in France: feline straying and the irresponsible attitude of our society towards cats.

Photo: DR

In pounds, animals are stockpiled while waiting to eventually be reclaimed. If this does not happen, after being held for eight days, they are euthanised. We have investigated several of them, where cats, victims of feline straying, are slaughtered en masse and dogs are killed with no hint of remorse. As if this painful ending is not enough, the animals can be victims of other unbearable mistreatment here.

A pound where the reputation of the manager speaks for itself

The Ranguevaux pound-rescue, also called Arche de Bouba, has been in the sights of associations for several years. There were dozens of reports concerning the treatment of the animals, carried out with the Moselle Prefecture. And yet!

Since 2013, various checks by public authorities have resulted in seizures of animals kept in miserable conditions and closures. As unacceptable as it may seem, the management has even been condemned for animal abuse and deceptive business practices. In May and August police officers went back to the site.

An alert about sick cats

This pattern of serious systemic failings happened again around Christmas. In unsanitary housing in the town of Crusnes, around thirty cats that had been left abandoned (out of the 70 estimated to be living there) were seized and transferred to the Ranguevaux pound in a catastrophic state of health. We are talking fleas, worms, coryza, typhus, feline infectious peritonitis; in short, a combination diseases that are fatal and extremely contagious among cats.

The cats had been cooped up with no care in the pound, on the grounds that it was too complicated to find a veterinarian during the end-of-year holidays. To the suffering caused by the diseases and the pure madness of the person who was keeping them were added the health risks and lack of responsibility from public services represented by this pound. On Monday 26 December, police officers accompanied by elected representatives from the community and an animal protection association went to the site to rescue the sick cats and send them to another establishment in Moineville.

However, one question remains unanswered. Out of the 70 cats mentioned in one of the reports, only thirty had been taken to Arche de Bouba. Where are the other forty? Are they still in the unsanitary housing, left on their own? Have they been taken in by rescue centres or transferred to another pound?

How can a person who is so blasé, particularly one known to be guilty of abuse, still be allowed to carry out activities involving animals? Worse still, to manage a pound and therefore represent a public service? What are the authorities waiting for to get this place closed down, and why are mayors agreeing and therefore subsidising this place?

We need an urgent plan!

We are immediately writing to the Departmental Directorate for Protecting Populations (DDPP: the Prefecture’s veterinary services) in Moselle to ask for the permanent closure of this pound-rescue which has proven its inability to properly take in and care for our closest companions. More than ever, this establishment and above all its management must not be in a position to take in other animals.

The implementation of a national management plan for feline straying is necessary and urgent! Neutering must be made obligatory throughout France to avoid these dramatic situations that create terrible suffering for 11 million stray cats in France, and for biodiversity.

Sign our petition! Let’s put an end to omerta and euthanasia in pounds! Together, let’s ask to get this miserable place closed down. You can also send a letter to the town mayors concerned and to the Moselle Prefecture too.

For the attention of Mayor Florent BERTELLE – Mairie de Crusnes 2 Rue de la Mairie, 54680 Crusnes
For the attention of Mayor Maurice LORENTZ – Mairie de Volmerange-les-Mines Place Raymond-Locatelli 57330 Volmerange-les-Mines
For the attention of Mayor Pierre TACCONI – Mairie de Guénange 1 place de l’Hôtel-de-Ville 57310 Guénange
For the attention of Mayoress Alexandra REBSTOCK PINNA – Mairie de Nilvange 5 rue Victor-Hugo 57240 Nilvange
For the attention of Mayor Raphaël ELIN – Mairie de Pommérieux 13 rue du Frêne 57420 Pommérieux
For the attention of Mayor Pierre KOWALCZYK – Mairie de Bousse 1 rue de l’Église 57310 Bousse

Download the letter to send to the Moselle Prefecture

Download the letter to send to the Mayors of the towns affected by the Ranguevaux pound.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Blaming animals to allow them to be massacred: the scandal of official hunts

Blaming animals to allow them to be massacred: the scandal of official hunts
29.12.2022
France
Blaming animals to allow them to be massacred: the scandal of official hunts
Wildlife

On 25 November, the Bouches-du-Rhône Prefect authorised an official hunt allowing the killing of deer (added onto the hunting season), by alluding to supposed ‘damage’ that they will cause to agricultural enterprises, without providing evidence! Another demonstration of a deliberate choice by prefects to disrespect the law to allow hunters to satisfy their thirst for killing animals. One Voice condemns this umpteenth misappropriation of the regulations and will speak up for the deer during the hearing of their emergency interim suspension proceeding on 5 January at the Marseille Administrative Tribunal.

Official hunts: a gift from prefects to hunters

Anything goes when it comes to allowing hunters to practice their hobby. In France, hunting is supposed to be, but it is not sufficiently, regulated (we have incidentally been asking for years for independent policing and monitoring of hunting, just like more than 300,000 people). The hunting licence exam is a farce, accidents keep happening and, week after week, they cost the lives of people who simply want to benefit from nature.

Hunters do not hide it: they like killing. And they can count on their prefect friends to give them numerous gifts. Among them is one that the hunters particularly appreciate: the ‘official hunts’. The words are polite, the reality of it less so: it is no more or less than the mass killing of tens of thousands of animals each year, eternal victims of the cruelty of an influential and vocal minority.

And of course, the gift does not end there: these massacres authorised by prefects are scarcely managed. Hunters can kill animals “day and night”, “in all places where they take refuge”, to use the terms in certain decrees. In short, killing is not enough; they must kill more, everywhere, and all the time.

The law? Trivial when it comes to massacring animals

The only obligation imposed on the prefects by the law to authorise such hunts — and it is already very few! — is to justify them. But this seems like too much effort: no proof of damage, no figures, no data. The prefects undoubtedly hope that these decrees will not be noticed. “Not seen, not caught!”. But let’s not forget: behind this disrespect for the law, there are thousands of animals who will be hunted down and massacred for the sole pleasure of a small number.

Faced with these repeat offences by the State and hunters, those defending animals and nature are keeping watch: to remind prefects of the meagre obligations that the law imposes on them in terms of hunting, we have increased our pleas against the decrees authorising official hunts. In Moselle, it was a win by default: the Prefect revoked his decree two days after the hearing.

Call on the Bouches-du-Rhône Prefect with us!

Example of the statement that you can copy and paste onto your networks:

Ms @Prefet13, for deer and for @onevoiceanimal take a lesson from @Prefet57: revoke this decree!
https://one-voice.fr/en/news/blaming-animals-to-allow-them-to-be-massacred-the-scandal-of-official-hunts/

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Incidents during a horse and hound hunt in Rambouillet woodland: One Voice is once again calling for a true hunting reform!

Incidents during a horse and hound hunt in Rambouillet woodland: One Voice is once again calling for a true hunting reform!
29.12.2022
France
Incidents during a horse and hound hunt in Rambouillet woodland: One Voice is once again calling for a true hunting reform!
Wildlife

On Saturday 19 November, in the Rambouillet woodland, a horse and hound hunting group illegally entered the garden of a resident from the town of Mesnuls and killed a young stag. Even though the group were guilty of several criminal offences, they were not worried. Warned by the PAACT [For the Abolition of Horse & Hound and Traditional Hunting] Rambouillet Association, One Voice is calling on the town Mayor, the director of the French Office for Biodiversity, and the Yvelines Prefect on what action they are planning in this situation!

In 2018, faced with increased violations by horse and hound hunting groups, the Mesnuls Mayor passed a municipal decree banning this practice in urban areas of the town. On Saturday 19 November, while a young stag was taking cover in a resident’s garden, a horse and hound hunting group, identified by witnesses as ‘the Rallye Bonnelles’, completely illegally entered the town, which was supposed to be a sanctuary. But the hunters again relied on their privileges and trampled, as they usually do, on the rules that apply to everyone else, with total impunity. Forced into the garden by dogs under their command, the young stag was killed.

Violations increase, hunters are still untouchable

The owner of the house, an elderly woman living alone, was in a state of shock. She stated: she would never have accepted this intrusion onto her property and would not have wanted this killing to have happened. But, under pressure from police officers and hunters, she could only watch helplessly as the young stag was killed after going back to her house. Obviously, the police had not informed her of the possibility of reporting a crime against the group for having illegally entered her property.

The hunters committed at least three violations: a violation of the municipal decree of 2018 banning hunting with hounds in an urban areas, hunting on private property without the consent of the landowner, and a violation of the 2019 decree on horse and hound hunting making it necessary that the animal is left alone under such circumstances. Obviously, the hunters had not been worried, unlike witnesses at the scene, to whom the police had made it clear that they should keep their distance.

Once again, the State took a clear position: when it comes to respecting the regulations and protecting residents, they systematically put hunters’ needs first.

For a ban, pure and simple, on horse and hound hunting

These violations are not isolated: they are the inevitable consequence of a form of hunting that has no place in the twenty-first century and of which 82% of French people oppose. Thanks to their three-year infiltration into the horse and hound hunting world, One Voice has widely documented the unbearable suffering that this practice causes to animals: to deer, clearly, but also to packs of dogs, regularly subjected to abuse.

While public opinion is ready and the legal system itself believes that tradition is not a sufficient argument to justify certain forms of cruel hunting, the government is still resisting, systematically supported by hunters.

Faced with the insufficient nature of former reforms, One Voice is strongly reiterating their call for a radical hunting reform, and for a ban, pure and simple, on horse and hound hunting.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice