For its ‘decoding’ of animal testing, UFC Choisir has chosen kindness against laboratories. An update is needed.
Archives: News
One Voice is filing emergency interim proceedings for corvids against the Jura department. The hearing is on 4 May in Besançon
One Voice is filing emergency interim proceedings for corvids against the Jura department. The hearing is on 4 May in Besançon
One Voice is filing emergency interim proceedings for corvids against the Jura department. The hearing is on 4 May in Besançon
30.04.2022
Jura
One Voice is filing emergency interim proceedings for corvids against the Jura department. The hearing is on 4 May in Besançon
Wildlife
One voice is fighting against the prefectural decree of 24 March 2022 allowing carrion crows and rooks to be killed in Jura. The hearing is on 4 May in Besançon.
On 24 March, the Jura Prefect decided — as they do every year — to issue a permanent decree to capture and kill carrion crows and rooks and to do so until 31 July. Authorisation has been given to the FREDON 39 [The Jura Department Federation of Groups Protecting Against Pest Organisms] in partnership with local hunters. The hearing to get this urgently suspended has been set for 4 May at 3pm at the Besançon Administrative Tribunal.
Birds: the first victims of the current sixth mass extinction
The last descendants of dinosaurs do not have an easy life unfortunately… the environment is less and less welcoming. In towns, food can be plentiful, but the noise and permanent lighting are problems that restrict reproduction. In the countryside, pesticides have ended up starving them.
The sixth mass extinction that is happening does not go easy on birds; quite the contrary. They bear the brunt of the denaturation of the planet by humans. In Jura, the Prefecture considers corvids to be pests to be killed… Even though animals interfere with some human activities, the answer to our problems should not lead to killing them!
Carrion crows and rooks: exceptional beings hunted down in Jura
Corvids are incredibly intelligent individuals and even have their own cultures. However, for years, the Prefect has organised the hunting of them in 239 communes in their department. They can be captured from the date of the signature on the decree until 31 July and can be killed by shooting from the closing of the hunting season until the same date.
We are urgently contesting this decree on various points, among other things because these birds do not harm the health of plants, public health, or the protection of the environment — the only justifications authorised by law — but because of the alleged need to fight against crop damage (which the Prefect does not even have any proof of!)… This is therefore unauthorised.
But also, because each year, and for many years, the Prefect issues identical decrees, ordering for these black birds to be massacred in an unrestricted way outside of the hunting season. It is therefore not about an exceptional measure, but a genuine transfer of power given to hunters.
Finally, the decree has not been submitted for public consultation even though its effects have an impact on the environment.
This is urgent!
Since the end of February, ravens and crows have been mercilessly hunted by hunters in the mountains of Jura. On the day of the hearing, it will be more than two months of them dying every week, with no consideration that the authorisation delivered by the Prefecture does not limit their number to the half of the Department where hunters have been given ‘corvid’ training delivered by FREDON (whose legitimacy we refute on many levels).
The cherry on the cake: the breeding period is therefore open to hunting… something that we have been asking for a reform on for more than four years, through our petition for a radical reform on hunting.
We will not let the Jura Prefecture allow hunters to dictate the law and continue to massacre birds without doing anything! The hearing to get the Prefectural decree urgently suspended has been set for 4 May at the Besançon Administrative Tribunal.
Translated from the French by Joely Justice
Let’s stop the ibex in Bargy from being massacred! Killing shots have been authorised in Haute-Savoie since Spring
Let’s stop the ibex in Bargy from being massacred! Killing shots have been authorised in Haute-Savoie since Spring
Let’s stop the ibex in Bargy from being massacred! Killing shots have been authorised in Haute-Savoie since Spring
30.04.2022
Haute Savoie
Let’s stop the ibex in Bargy from being massacred! Killing shots have been authorised in Haute-Savoie since Spring
Wildlife
Alongside its partners, One Voice has filed emergency interim proceedings against the prefectural decree targeting the Bargy ibex. The hearing will take place in Grenoble on 11 May.
Last Friday we filed a joint plea with our partners against a Prefectural decree that will allow heavy and indiscriminate culling shots on ibex in Haute-Savoie, from this Spring. The emergency interim hearing to obtain the suspension will take place at the Grenoble Administrative Tribunal on 11 May at 10am.
Under the pretext of fighting against brucellosis and under pressure from local reblochon producers, the Haute-Savoie Prefecture has signed a document that allows, until 2030, twenty ibex to be killed each year, whether they are infected or not, to then be analysed post-mortem. All of this to the disappointment of the 84% who are against this decree proposal… Massacring Alpine Ibex (Capra ibex) that are in good health is completely grotesque when the species is protected on an international level and while several hundreds of individuals live in the Bargy mountains.
Legal actions repeated year after year!
How many legal actions will be necessary to make it clear that the survival of Bargy’s ibex is inherent to that of the ecosystems? Especially as it has been shown that nine ibex in ten are not diseased… We must immediately put a stop to this proposed massacre!
It is not the first time that we are attacking decrees to defend Bargy’s ibex. We have increased our actions since the first case in 2012, then in 2018 as well as in 2019 to save these majestic mountain inhabitants.
An interim suspension and an annulment appeal filed with our partners
We are reiterating our process, this time shared with Animal Cross, ASPAS, AVES, FNE Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, FNE Haute-Savoie, and the LPO nationale, hoping to be heard.
The absolute priority is to preserve all ibex in good health in the Bargy mountains, which is 96% of the current population. Shooting them when they are not unwell is as absurd as flying a helicopter dozens of times above birds’ nests which are becoming rare and are extremely vulnerable. Protected birds of prey are in serious danger with these irresponsible practices. Humans purposefully too often put their selfish interests before those of animals and nature, which are necessary for their own survival.
In this critical situation, the urgent applications judge has set the hearing for 11 May. While waiting for it, our partner FNE Haute-Savoie has launched a petition that we invite you to sign.
Translated from the French by Joely Justice
Adaptive hunting: threatened species under hunters’ fire. One Voice is at the State Council on 11 May for the birds.
Adaptive hunting: threatened species under hunters’ fire. One Voice is at the State Council on 11 May for the birds.
Adaptive hunting: threatened species under hunters’ fire. One Voice is at the State Council on 11 May for the birds.
28.04.2022
France
Adaptive hunting: threatened species under hunters’ fire. One Voice is at the State Council on 11 May for the birds.
Other campaign or multi-campaigns of One Voice
Elegant turtledoves, majestic Western capercaillies, fierce Eurasian curlews, and even black-tailed godwits, greylag geese, and common pochards better watch out!
Elegant turtledoves, majestic western capercaillies, fierce Eurasian curlews, but also black-tailed godwit, greylag geese, and common pochards, just have to behave! With the management principle of adaptive hunting, hunters are taking over again and have full freedom to kill animals that are in decline. The hearing at the State Council will take place on 11 May 2022 at 2pm.
Edit from 14 May 2022:
The decision should be returned around three weeks after the hearing, so in the first week of June.
These birds in our countryside and mountains have one thing in common: they are all on the IUCU red list of threatened species in France. Classified as vulnerable, in decline, or in danger, their population continues to decline. However, hunters, spurred on by the sole pleasure of killing them at point-blank range, continue to make fun of them. To destroy biodiversity with no shame, they champion the implementation of an adaptive management of species. An environmental aberration.
The principle is simple. Adaptive management allows them to “regularly adjust harvesting of species according to the conservation status of their population and habitat, based on scientific knowledge relating to these populations”.
Simply, this management relies on a simple feedback system. Who are they kidding?
The complexity of monitoring species
We know the method of monitoring species is extremely complex and requires ambitious ways of collecting data, putting it together, analysing it, and finally, reacting. Who will take care of this? Hunters themselves and their ‘Chassadapt’ app? This app, presented as a way of controlling specimens and improving knowledge of species, relies on hunters’ mere statements. This is just another aberration.
A system extended to non-hunted species
The adaptive management system on the 90 (!!!) hunted species in France should have been put in place by the biodiversity plan in July 2018. But insatiable hunters asked to apply it to non-hunted species. “Not only does hunting have less impact on fragile hunted species, but a species that is no longer hunted is still doomed ,” Willy Schraen, President of the Fédération nationale des chasseurs [National Federation of Hunters], assures in Connaissance de la chasse [Hunting Awareness] magazine, dated September 2018, without even blushing. Such cynicism is chilling and we uphold the opposite view: let’s stop killing animals, especially when they are already in decline.
However, adaptive management has been included in the law of 24 July 2019. And if it is supervised by a committee of scientific experts (the GEGA) who are responsible for issuing recommendations, these will not be followed by the government. The GEGA has also recommended a harvest quota of zero individuals on turtledoves and Eurasian curlews. With no effect.
Victories…
On 10 September 2020, One Voice and the LPO [League for the Protection of Birds] won their appeals filed before the State Council to get the decree authorising the massacre of turtledoves, already on the cusp of extinction, suspended. On this date, 6,368 individuals had been killed. The decree will be annulled on 30 December 2021. On 17 December 2020, the State Council ruled in the LPO’s favour, during an appeal filed against a decree allowing the hunting of 6,000 Eurasian curlews in 2019-2020. This decree had already been urgently suspended by the high court in August 2019.
Yes but…
The fight for the birds continues. We cannot let them pass this unjust law that gives full power to hunters with no regard for biodiversity. We have filed a plea before the State Council against adaptive management in hunting: the executive decree and the list of species concerned. The hearing at the State Council will take place on 11 May 2022 at 2pm.
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
France
Mina dead at the start of 2022 and Kamala taken abroad. But what are the authorities doing?!
Exploitation for shows
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
Fighting for transparency should not be a full-time job
Fighting for transparency should not be a full-time job
Fighting for transparency should not be a full-time job
26.04.2022
Fighting for transparency should not be a full-time job
Animal testing
When we try to access inspection reports for animal testing laboratories, the civil service often resists. However, the rulings have followed in quick succession in support of transparency permitted by law, which is not supposed to be optional. But sometimes there is not such good news: recently, the Nice Tribunal authorised the Alpes-Maritimes Prefecture to hide the identity of a laboratory… The law remains subject to interpretation and the fight for transparency becomes a tedious and long-term job.
Since last Autumn, almost thirty rulings in around twenty administrative tribunals have maintained and confirmed that the animal testing laboratory inspection reports are administrative documents that are available to the general public.
In one of the latest examples, the Clermont-Ferrand Tribunal had given this ruling for the Allier, Haute-Loire, and Puy-de-Dôme Prefectures. These rulings can only exist thanks to persistence being maintained in the long run.
In fact, administrations’ customs are often to play the silent card, while hoping that those who address them do not know about the existence of the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents (CAAD [Commission for Access to Administrative Documents — CADA), or do not have the resources, in the favourable opinion of the CAAD, to appeal to the administrative courts, the proceedings of which can take more than a year. And if this does finally end up before the court, the most likely case is still that a layperson does not know how to defend their right of access convincingly, while administrations can put confidence in their legal services to argue their refusal in terms that can be heard by a court.
Documents that should already be public
Drafting these pleas (and gathering the knowledge necessary to argue them correctly) is time-consuming, but sometimes we get a result. While prefectures claim that publishing inspection reports would be risky for the laboratories concerned, who would then be targeted by attacks from animal activists, the majority of the courts are not fooled. The prefectures also claim that animal testing in itself is so frowned upon by the general public that it would be absolutely necessary to conceal the identity of the laboratories. But again, the courts do not believe this.
It must be said that the vast majority of these laboratories do not belong to Sanofi, Royal Canin, Marshall BioResources, or other chains. In fact, the majority are public establishments – universities and other higher education or professional training establishments, but also research teams from CNRS, Inserm, INRAE, or even military laboratories… Why would we not have the right to know where our money is being used in these research centres? And why do we not have a right to know when these centres break the law with public money; with our money?
Transparency on show
Numerous laboratories incidentally signed a ‘transparency charter on the use of animals for scientific and regulatory purposes’ last year. It seems that the term ‘animal testing’ does not really attract public favour – but recognise that a charter that does not commit a research centre to much other than advertising animal testing and its regulation is a pretty clever find. This allows the general public to believe that laboratories have nothing to hide, while the civil service does what it can so that no really substantial information can be leaked.
Even those who are looking to whistle blow internally can find themselves without a job while nothing is done to resolve dysfunctions. We hope that this type of situation will disappear with the protection of whistle-blowers permitted by the law adopted unanimously by the Senate on 16 February.
Disillusions
For now, with several tribunals, case files, and rulings, everything does not always go the way that we would hope and there can be some disappointments and issues. In December, despite several more favourable decisions already released by other tribunals, the Lyon Administrative Tribunal ruled that the security risks justify the names of the establishments being hidden on the inspection reports. However, we have already found information online on animal testing at the Claude Bernard University – Lyon 1, Inserm’s P4 Laboratory, and the Charles River websites, which are not hiding that they are carrying out animal testing.
More recently on 22 February, the Nice Administrative Tribunal ruled that it was possible to hide the name of only one of the establishments concerned by the requested reports, insofar as this establishment houses an ‘A3’ animal facility which handles the rabies virus and a ‘P3’ zone which handles feline coronavirus[1]. According to this ruling, due to the presence of dangerous pathogens, revealing the name of the establishment would be equivalent to creating a security risk. Just by typing ‘A3 animal facility’ into a search engine you will quickly come across construction websites that show where they have built such animal facilities, even on the websites of establishments that themselves indicate that such an animal facility is present on their premises.
Furthermore, these pathogens directly concern viruses present in the wild and have a direct repercussion on the health of wild animals and on human populations – not to mention keeping primates and other wildlife animals in numerous laboratories, or even the inherent risks in handling pathogens regardless of the precautions taken (in the event of an escape or accident) The Environmental Code allows this kind of information to benefit from a right to extensive access for the public. This is what was argued in the case file sent to the tribunal and could have swayed the magistrates towards an even more favourable decision for our cause. But this is not discussed in the decision made by the tribunal, without it being known if this oversight is voluntary or not.
[1] The A3 and P3 acronyms refer to levels of biosafety (from 1 to 4). The higher the level, the bigger the constraints are to avoid escapes and external contaminations as much as possible.
The fight does not end there
Despite these two more nuanced decisions, since autumn, more than twenty rulings from other tribunals have established that the inspection reports for the animal testing laboratories can be communicated by hiding only the names of the staff from the establishments and the veterinary inspectors. These rulings are the result of an in-depth work that we do not see on the ground and which we hardly hear spoken about on social networks – but it is work that requires a lot of time, energy, and money to highlight what is happening and to counter the prevailing obscurity when it comes to animal exploitation.
Many case files still do not give rise to a ruling, and we are filing other requests to obtain the documents that will allow us to better understand the situation, better inform the public, and inform on unjustifiable, or even illegal, practices. As long as animal testing exists, we will fight to demand transparency, to demand public powers to invest greatly in research methods that do not involve animals, and to oblige laboratories to exclusively use these methods. We will never stop fighting for the animals who are victims of this injustice.
Translated from the French by Joely Justice
Animals still under fire in Gard. One Voice is appealing to the Nîmes Administrative Tribunal; the hearing is set for 3 May
Animals still under fire in Gard. One Voice is appealing to the Nîmes Administrative Tribunal; the hearing is set for 3 May
Animals still under fire in Gard. One Voice is appealing to the Nîmes Administrative Tribunal; the hearing is set for 3 May
23.04.2022
Gard
Animals still under fire in Gard. One Voice is appealing to the Nîmes Administrative Tribunal; the hearing is set for 3 May
Wildlife
Foxes, badgers, wild boars, deer, roe deer, and fallow deer are targeted by the Gard Prefecture. One Voice is fighting the decree of 21 February 2022. The hearing is on 3 May.
Foxes and badgers as well as animals such as wild boars, deer, roe deer, and fallow deer are targeted by the Gard Prefecture. On 21 February, the Prefect ordered the Wolfcatcher Royals in particular and other sworn officers to kill or capture them. Foxes are targeted indefinitely; other animals will be from 24 February to 11 September 2022, so for a six-month duration, in a period when hunting them is supposed to be banned. One Voice is therefore fighting against this decree that gives free rein to hunters and the like. A plea and an emergency interim suspension have been filed against this bureaucratic hunt; without it, blood will flow in the Gard scrubland. The hearing will take place at the Administrative Tribunal on 3 May at 2pm.
Edit from 14 May 2022:
On 9 May 2022, the urgent applications judge rejected our request to suspend the decree. We are now waiting for the date of the hearing for the annulment appeal that we have also filed.
The reasons put forward to justify killing animals by the Gard Prefect are always the same: traffic accidents and property damage for some, and potential diseases transmissible to humans for foxes.
Foxes, pests: really?
But we have known for a long time and thanks mainly to official reports that foxes are not more dangerous than dogs that are used to life in the great outdoors. When it comes to alveolar echinococcosis, prevention campaigns can avoid contamination without issue (you must not eat fruits that could have been infected by fox excrement and therefore pick them from up high). When it comes to Lyme disease, the presence of foxes is, on the contrary, a benefit: when they are present in an area, they avoid the spread of this disease by attacking the hosts of ticks: voles. They are also, at the same time, at the root of a decrease in the use of pesticides on crops. Red foxes suffer from an unjustified bad reputation which sticks to them and results in more than half a million deaths each year in France (see our 2017 report).
Hunters have an insatiable appetite for spilt blood
Animals considered as game, such as badgers, mercilessly dug out (as are foxes), wild boars, deer, roe and fallow deer, hunted in the autumn and winter every year, are only left in peace for the breeding season and the upbringing of their young.
Hunters cannot, under the pretext of wanting to carry out their bloody hobby all year round, dictate what they want to the prefectures under false pretences! Saying that animals are a traffic hazard or cause damage is nothing more or less than a refusal to admit that these are man-made roads that cross through their forests, and it is not the animals that are crossing our roads… Or that the farmers cannot bear a badger’s family sett, used by other animal species too, and that badgers are therefore a source of wealth for ecosystems. Instead of this, ‘damage’ is stated, often without figures to back it up, and the authorisation to get the guns out is established. As if the only solution to our small discomforts is always to kill.
A prefectural decree that we are contesting for many reasons
These animals, targeted by this decree of 21 February 2022, are victims of a wrongful trial.
This decree must be suspended as a matter of urgency; if not, thousands of animals will perish (the authorised number is unlimited)! The Wolfcatcher Royals, sworn agents of the French Office of Biodiversity (Office français de la biodiversité – OFB) and of the Departmental Federation of Hunters in Gard can, by the way, enlist the services of whomever they want, from a lambda hunter, for example.
Additionally, for years, the same arrangements have been renewed for a duration of six months, so that the ‘demolition’ is carried out throughout the whole year. It is therefore no longer about an exceptional measure arranged in order to respond to a localised problem in time and space (which is authorised by the Environmental Code), but about a true transfer of power given, for years and throughout the whole year, in the whole department to those concerned.
The massacre has already begun. There is therefore an urgency, especially as the public has not been consulted. The hearing will take place at the Nîmes Administrative Tribunal on 3 May.
Translated from the French by Joely Justice
Eleven animals seized from Kid Bauer in the Saint Léger Park: the investigation continues!
Eleven animals seized from Kid Bauer in the Saint Léger Park: the investigation continues!
Eleven animals seized from Kid Bauer in the Saint Léger Park: the investigation continues!
22.04.2022
Saint Leger
Eleven animals seized from Kid Bauer in the Saint Léger Park: the investigation continues!
Exploitation for shows
On Wednesday 20 April a confiscation took place at the Saint Léger Park as part of our complaint for mistreatment. An extensive inspection was arranged by legal authorities on the property and with staff and also carried out animal by animal with the help of veterinarians. We have organised for the animals seized to be cared for as an outcome of this inspection and entrusted to us.
We could not say anything about it on D-day, especially as nothing was guaranteed until the last minute. But now that the Beauvais public prosecutor’s department have spoken, we can tell you that eleven individuals have been seized and put under One Voice’s protection by the deputy public prosecutor who led operations. Two muntjacs (tiny deer), a porcupine, a swan, the two macaws (parrots), four tortoises, and the python left the Saint Léger Park as soon as the decision was made and the papers were signed.
Eleven animals are safe with our partners
Arriving on site in the refuge of our partners, the animals were first of all placed in quarantine. They will soon be able to get comfortable in much bigger and more secure enclosures than at the Saint Léger Park where, for example, the tortoises were frequently trampled on, as evidenced by the signs reading ‘do not step on the tortoises’ which we took photos of several times over the years, and there were low fences surrounding the space reserved for them. As for the swan, its wings were clipped which prevents it from flying away if it were to be attacked…
The animals still on the premises
The lions and tigers from this settled circus are subjected to training and must perform in shows each day that the park is open to visitors. Members of the public are invited to enter the wild cats’ cage… not to mention the tiger cubs exhibited and passed from one person to another at the end of the show… The lemurs as well, who were filmed a few months ago trying to climb on children, licking hands, risking being trampled on… We will never give up on them. And this is not a persecution of the park owners! We have nothing against them, but a settled circus cannot confine wild cats to a life in a lorry. Who can still believe that that is an acceptable habitat for them? It is clearly the animals who pay the price.
Either way, it is about a provisional placement. We will therefore obviously wait for the end of the investigation and to obtain the magistrate’s final decision, but we are confident for the future of these eleven animals. We will do everything we can for the others, whose futures remain uncertain, especially as the park is up for sale.
Translated from the French by Joely Justice
World Day for Laboratory Animals on 24 April: moving towards the end of animal testing in Europe
World Day for Laboratory Animals on 24 April: moving towards the end of animal testing in Europe
World Day for Laboratory Animals on 24 April: moving towards the end of animal testing in Europe
20.04.2022
France
World Day for Laboratory Animals on 24 April: moving towards the end of animal testing in Europe
Animal testing
A weekend of action and a website on the figures on animal testing on 24 April 2022 for World Day for Laboratory Animals.
One Voice is organising a weekend to raise awareness in the field, throughout France, on 23 and 24 April, for World Day for Laboratory Animals. On this occasion, our activists will interact with the public in a dozen towns and will encourage them to sign the SaveCrueltyFreeCosmetics European Citizens’ Initiative to reinforce the prohibition of testing cosmetics on animals in the European Union voted in nine years ago, and also to go further in putting an end to animal testing in the EU. And so that transparency takes precedence, we are publishing a visual representation on specific aspects of the figures on animal testing in France on a dedicated website.
Official figures are not so transparent…
According to official figures which have just been published, 1.6 million procedures were carried out on animals in France in 2020. There have therefore been less experiments than the previous year, but not less victims of animal testing despite that, because in 2020 the Covid epidemic led to absences in laboratories… and in these cases, the animals were killed. Yet in France, unlike almost all of Europe, the deaths of animals not experimented on have not been counted in animal testing figures.
A visualisation of the development of detailed figures by species on a dedicated website
The reuse of animals, severe pain, stress, etc. To help the general public to better understand the extent and the severity of animal testing, we have asked the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation to provide details of the annual declarations in order to genuinely improve transparency on the use of animals in laboratories in France. We will present the results in the form of an image to uncover and visualise the detailed figures and see their development as the years go by for the many species concerned.
Animal suffering in laboratories
The animals who are victims of these procedures spend their entire lives enclosed. It is nothing but bars, stress, terror, and suffering. They are used among other things for essential and applied research, as well as for toxicology testing.
According to Jeanne Mas, who will be there in Paris during our event on 23 April to testify to her solidarity with animals, this quotation from George Bernard Shaw resonates like no other:
«Atrocities are not less atrocious when they are happening in laboratories and when they are being called medical research.»
Yet two thirds of procedures involve significant suffering. Worse, almost 430,000 animals endure what we call ‘severe suffering’!
The parents or grandparents of many animals including primates are captured in the wild, transported in harmful conditions, and are destined for an existence of chain breeding with their young being systematically taken from them. Others are brought up in France (dogs from Mézilles and Gannat, mouse lemurs from the National Natural History Museum, fish), but many are from abroad (macaques from Mauritius or Indonesia… who can also pass through France via establishments like Silabe, linked to the University of Strasbourg). Some even come from zoos!
The law banning animal testing for cosmetics is in danger!
The ban on animal testing for cosmetics in the EU, voted in nine years ago after a long battle and an initial successful European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), is in danger. The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) lobby is underway and is questioning this decision.
A new European Citizens’ Initiative which goes further to be signed and shared
This is why we have taken part in a new ECI to salvage cosmetics without testing on animals, but more generally to just stop animal testing in the EU! And we are being supported by our representatives on a European level: just a few months ago, Members of the European Parliament spoke in an historic vote to gradually put an end to animal testing in the European Union. Thus, although France has just exceeded its minimum number of signatures as part of the SaveCrueltyFreeCosmetics ECI, more than a million are needed for the whole of the EU. We therefore must continue to sign and get as many European citizens as possible to sign this ECI!
Sign the SaveCrueltyFreeCosmetics ECI
Our activists are leading measures to raise awareness in the field throughout France
Our activists will be present in numerous towns on 23 and 24 April (unspecified, the action is taking place on 23/04). Take a look at the national event and those for each town below.
Note: the locations and dates may be changed up until the last minute (authorisation by prefectures, weather…). Refer to each of them; they will be updated in real time.
| Department | Town | Facebook Event | Place | Date and Time |
| 06 | Nice | https://www.facebook.com/events/254074546861420/ | Promenade du Paillon | Note: postponed to 30/04 |
| 10 | Troyes | https://www.facebook.com/events/1618991778466024 | 71, Rue Émile Zola | Note: postponed to 30/04 |
| 33 | Bordeaux | https://www.facebook.com/events/559524238668117 | Place de la Comédie | 24 April 2pm to 5pm |
| 34 | Montpellier | https://www.facebook.com/events/1165495784205266 | Place de la Comédie | Note: postponed to 07/05 |
| 44 | Nantes | https://www.facebook.com/events/678598936698710/ | Place Royale | 2pm to 3:30pm |
| 61 | Flers | https://www.facebook.com/events/323247553239726/ | Place Saint-Germain | 10am to 11:30am |
| 64 | Anglet | https://www.facebook.com/events/478513874013354 | Esplanade des Gascons | Note: postponed to 30/04 |
| 67 | Strasbourg | https://www.facebook.com/events/556268385699860/ | Place du Corbeau | 2:00pm to 4:00pm |
| 69 | Lyon | https://www.facebook.com/events/1379938835802908 | Place Saint-Jean | Note: postponed to a later date |
| 74 | Annecy | https://www.facebook.com/events/256747959925474 | 63, rue Carnot | Note: postponed to 21/05 |
| 75 | Paris | https://www.facebook.com/events/5459245317442367/ | Hôtel de ville | 2:30pm to 4pm |
| 76 | Rouen | https://www.facebook.com/events/542340967410545/ | Place de la Cathédrale | 2:00pm to 4:00pm |
At work on social networks too
If you would also like to take part in World Day for Laboratory Animals but you are not able to travel, here are the posts that you can use (and adapt) at your leisure on your social networks throughout 24 April to get the ECI signed.
- Today is #WorldDayforAnimalsinLaboratories! Did you know that more than one million experiments are done on rats in the EU in one year? Stop this cruelty by signing the European Citizens’ Initiative: http://savecrueltyfree.eu #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal #WorldDayforAnimalsinLaboratories
- Animal testing in Europe must stop! 72% of EU Citizens would like to end this cruelty but the EU is turning a deaf ear. Let’s make this change! Sign for a cruelty-free EU: http://savecrueltyfree.eu #WorldDayforAnimalsinLaboratories #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal
- It is time to put an end to animal testing in Europe! We need YOU to add your signature so that these barbaric practices stop in the EU. Sign today: http://savecrueltyfree.eu #WorldDayforAnimalsinLaboratories #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal
- The animals need your help! Sign the European Citizens’ Initiative, join and share the campaign demanding that the EU puts an end to #AnimalTesting. To find out more: http://savecrueltyfree.eu #WorldDayforAnimalsinLaboratories #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal
- Distribute widely! I am asking the EU to put an end to animal testing in Europe. Join me by sharing this post and by signing: http://savecrueltyfree.eu #WorldDayforAnimalsinLaboratories #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal
- Animal testing is barbaric, costly, and ineffective. I am posting this message to show my support for a cruelty-free EU. Join me by signing and sharing http://savecrueltyfree.eu #WorldDayforAnimalsinLaboratories #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal
- Throughout the EU, MILLIONS of animals are suffering from tests and experiments. Each signature counts for animals in Europe. Sign today to put an end to animal testing: http://savecrueltyfree.eu #WorldDayforAnimalsinLaboratories #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal
- 5 million experiments done in the EU involve what legislation deems “serious or moderate suffering” for the animals that are victims. Join me for a cruelty-free EU by signing: http://savecrueltyfree.eu #WorldDayforAnimalsinLaboratories #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal
- The countdown begins to put an end to #AnimalTesting in the EU! More than a million signatures are needed to stop tests on animals. Join me on #WorldDayforAnimalsinLaboratories: sign http://savecrueltyfree.eu! #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal #WorldDayforAnimalsinLaboratories
- 11,194 experiments on primates in the space of just one year is 11,194 experiments too many. Today is #WorldDayforAnimalsinLaboratories. Will you join me for a cruelty-free EU? Please sign and share: http://savecrueltyfree.eu #EndAnimalTesting @onevoiceanimal #WorldDayforAnimalsinLaboratories
Translated from the French by Joely Justice
On 14 April on Flight 473, Air France transported 100 monkeys from Mauritius bound for a British laboratory
On 14 April on Flight 473, Air France transported 100 monkeys from Mauritius bound for a British laboratory
On 14 April on Flight 473, Air France transported 100 monkeys from Mauritius bound for a British laboratory
19.04.2022
Maurice
On 14 April on Flight 473, Air France transported 100 monkeys from Mauritius bound for a British laboratory
Animal testing
On 14 April at 6 o’clock in the morning, a passenger flight from Mauritius landed in Roissy, probably full of tourists coming back from their holidays on the idyllic island. What these passengers did not know was that 100 terrified monkeys were just beneath their feet in the hold.
On 14 April at 6 o’clock in the morning, Air France 473, an overnight passenger flight coming from Mauritius landed at Charles de Gaulle airport (CDG), probably full of tourists coming back from their holidays on the idyllic island. What these passengers did not know, while they were appreciating their comfort on the flight, was that 100 terrified monkeys were just beneath their feet in the hold. What a violent contrast between these holiday-makers and the imprisoned monkeys in crates. For the latter, the final destination was a British test laboratory in which they will endure the worst before certain death.
An eleven-hour fight before… a lab bench.
A concerned worker at Roissy airport warned Action for Primates and One Voice after having learnt the fate awaiting these long-tailed macaques shipped as cargo. From Paris, the monkeys were subjected to more hours of confinement in crates during their transportation to the United Kingdom. We suspect that they were transported by the German carrier Bin Air from France to the United Kingdom, arriving at Manchester Airport, a key destination for monkeys imported into the United Kingdom for the research and toxicity testing (poisoning) industry. The final destination for the monkeys was Labcorp (previously known as Covance) in Harrogate, a global research company specialising in pharmaceutical, chemical, and phytosanitary product testing.
A non-transparent and despicable trade
One Voice and Action for Primates have already revealed the secret and cruel world of the trade and transportation of monkeys into Europe to be used in laboratories and the role of Air France in the regular transportation of monkeys from Vietnam and Mauritius into Europe. The island of Mauritius is the main supplier of monkeys for European and American laboratories, exporting more than 14,000 of them in 2021. France is one of the countries at the heart of this cruel trade, with Silabe (Simian Laboratory Europe), a company based in Niederhausbergen, being used as a known stopover for importing hundreds of monkeys which are then sold to laboratories throughout Europe.
With widespread worry from the public, a good number of the main worldwide airline companies that once transported monkeys to laboratories — such as American Airlines, British Airways, United Airlines, South African Airways, Air China, China Airlines, Delta Airlines, Eva Air and Air Canada — have put an end to their involvement in this cruel enterprise. Other passenger and freight carriers have also declared their intention not to be implicated in this trade.
What awaits them…
Long-tailed macaques are the most used species of non-human primate in laboratories. The majority of individuals are used in tests to estimate the toxicity of medications and chemical products. In these ‘poisoning’ tests, the monkeys are given a substance by injection or by force-feeding to see the harmful effects on the animals. Still. Different species react differently to a medication or a chemical product and the toxicity tests cannot foresee the undesirable effects that humans will suffer. There will always be difficulties in making predictions between one species and another, and between laboratory experiments carefully controlled for the human condition and real situations in a human life.
Let’s act together for the macaques
Please join Action for Primates and One Voice in our appeal to Air France for them to stop transporting non-human primates and to join the many other airline companies who refuse to play a role in this cruel trade.
Send a message to (download message template here)
Anne Rigail, Managing Director: anne.rigail@airfrance.fr
Christophe Boucher, Executive Vice-President of Air France Cargo, chboucher@airfrance.fr
Frédéric Kahane, Group Director of Customer Loyalty for Air France, frederic.kahane@airfrance.fr
You can also write to Bin Air to ask for clarification on its role in transporting monkeys intended for research and urge them not to take part in the cruel worldwide trade of monkeys’ lives: cierpka@binair.eu and charter@binair.eu
Translated from the French by Joely Justice