News Archive - Page 69 of 153

One Voice is requesting a ban on a very painful experiment on more than 27,000 animals

One Voice is requesting a ban on a very painful experiment on more than 27,000 animals
12.12.2022
France
One Voice is requesting a ban on a very painful experiment on more than 27,000 animals
Animal testing

On 14 December, the urgent applications judge from the Paris Administrative Tribunal, referred to by One Voice, ruled on the request to suspend the authorisation of the animal testing project. The targeted project was authorised on 10 July 2022 by the Ministry of Research, and planned to subject more than 27,000 rodents to ‘severe’ experiments which would artificially induce real epileptic seizures through audio shockwaves, injections, or electric shocks in the eyes or brain, several times over for some of them.

When you know how sociable and creative these small mammals are, your heart sinks at the idea of what they endure in laboratories. This is no exception. Researchers will induce epileptic seizures on 8700 mice, 17,730 rats, and 1000 gerbils. How?

After having had holes made in their skulls and their brains filled with electrodes and various objects, each of these individuals will have to endure electric shocks or be exposed to stressful sounds at a very high volume until it causes a loss of consciousness and convulsions. In the United States, in a similar procedure, rodents were enclosed in a box for three whole minutes with a domestic security alarm set at 110-120 dB – which is very loud, especially for a mouse. Methods are as varied as they are horrifying.

One Voice is asking for the project to be cancelled

We discovered this project after its publication on the ALURES database, which lists animal testing project summaries approved within the European Union since 2021.

On 9 September, we asked the Ministry of Research to send us the necessary documents to better understand the project. Two months later, they simply sent us the authorisation report and the sheet containing a ‘favourable’ mention from the ethical committee. The Association has therefore filed an emergency interim suspension proceeding and a cancellation plea at the Paris Administrative Tribunal.

An illegal project…

The regulations are clear on this subject: the reuse of animals who have been subjected to an initial severe procedure is supposed to be forbidden. What’s more, the committee who assessed it came down against ‘replacement’ (one of the ‘three Rs’ in animal testing).

Furthermore, the project summary that we obtained only mentioned, with regard to the efforts made to reduce the suffering of the animals used, administering an anaesthetic gel on rodents’ eyes and post-operative painkillers. This is the bare minimum required by regulations, and this still results in them being classified as ‘severe’ procedures – the highest level of suffering in the European Union regulation framework.

…so it is possible for it to happen!

Still, according to the project summary, the aim of these tests is to verify the toxicity and efficacy of new pharmacological substances. But when we know the mediocre track record of toxicity tests on animals to predict human responses to medications, there is a lot to doubt about the benefits of this new project.

The laboratory definitively maintains that, despite the existence of neuronal cultures or the possibility of working on pieces of brain from deceased epileptic people, the efficacy of substances ‘must’ be shown on animals. No need to argue apparently. But for One Voice, the ‘replacement’ of animals with other methods would be the ideal, an ideal also aimed towards by the European regulation that implemented the 3 Rs.

In addition, the laboratory presents reuse of the same animals for several epileptic seizures as a ‘reduction’ method for the number of animals used. Or how to artificially reduce the figures by inflicting repeated suffering on the same individuals… this is where we go back to where we started: it is banned.

The hearing will be held on 14 December at 3pm at the Paris Administrative Tribunal.

To go further and discover different types of research and levels of animal suffering in French laboratories, you can consult our recently published site dedicated to analysing ministerial data.

Warning: the content of the below images is difficult to look at.

The visual images at the top of the article do not belong to One Voice and come from Stereotaxic implantation of EEG electrodes in the rat.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Pound staff get their hands on stray cats…

Pound staff get their hands on stray cats…
08.12.2022
Normandie
Pound staff get their hands on stray cats…
Domestic animals

Here is the second section of our campaign in pounds in France, which highlights the way in which our country treats cats. This investigation near Avranches in Normandy allows us to show, with a specific case, the very real consequences of individuals and public authorities not being responsible when it comes to cats. In other words, the suffering, disease, and ultimately slaughter – who still dares to talk about euthanasia here?! – of those who do not die in the streets in pounds. One Voice is organising action to raise awareness throughout France, and calling for an urgent plan to combat feline straying.

Gateways to employment, an integration project, made up of odds and ends

Should animals who are already homeless have to endure the lack of hygiene, discomfort, and psychological and social fragility of the humans who look after them once they are rescued?

When we received the first report on this pound-rescue, the Bardot Foundation and former volunteers had already called out to the prefecture several times since 2015, without much success. Like for SIVU 47, the first part of our campaign in pounds, the manager of a neighbouring rescue centre herself had tried over and over again to improve the situation. Including with the support of the Confédération nationale de défense de l’animal [National Confederation for Animal Defence], by bringing their attention to hygiene problems, a lack of respect for the regulations, and a lack of training for the staff with disastrous consequences for the animals.

Gateways to employment also offer workshops aimed at reintegration through other activities such as planting vegetables and plants but also through work. This social mission is exemplary… while sentient beings in distress themselves do not come into play.

Our investigation reveals that most cats taken in are killed there!

When our investigators were finally able to visit the site, lockdowns and interdepartmental transport restrictions having prevented our usual responsiveness, there were several improvements in the infrastructures. In the exterior space of the cattery, for example, a concrete slab had been poured in place of the beaten earth that was there before. But it is still impossible to clean it satisfactorily.

Hygiene, lighting, climatic hazards, illnesses and injuries, escapes: basic problems still existed. For months, no cats were put up for adoption because no treatment was planned for them. After a quarantine spent crammed into a shed with no daylight, without insulation and with no veterinary visit, they were placed into a communal cattery. Before this, there were no preliminary FIV or FeLV tests either. A complete lack of care for these cats, the majority of them affected by coryza and intestinal problems…

Are unwell kittens and cats here being exposed to the cold again now? That is the problem with a lack of public money and precarious solutions: we have to choose between two unsuitable solutions and it is the cats who pay the price.

2020 was a terrible year for cats in the pound-rescue in Sud Manche. Real carnage happened there. The knacker who comes along when the pound has filled their 200kg freezer up with bodies, in other words usually approximately every six months to a year, came three times more often. And for good reason! Hundreds of cats died throughout the year, most of them without explanation.

Did they die from illness? If yes, which one? Were they ‘euthanised’? If yes, by whom and for what reason? One day, ten deaths occurred, nine of which were ‘euthanasias’. Kittens were slaughtered for no reason and sometimes without a veterinarian being present. By whom? How? The cats and the few dogs found in the freezer had not all been seen by a veterinarian. Their open for adoption profile was taken off the Facebook page. Incidentally, we are wondering how some kittens were killed because frozen blood was visible in their throats. The DDPP (veterinary services) pinned this disastrous management on the rescue-pound and asked for new procedures.

The dogs, during the same period, had mostly been returned to their families or adopted. It is clear that the treatment by the rescue-pound is not the same towards them at all… And also the treatment that certain individuals subject cats to by neglecting to get them microchipped and neutered.

Resolve the problem by attacking it at its root

We have been asking for a long time, and even more so since 2018, for an urgent plan for stray cats in France. The November 2021 law illustrates its shortcomings, one of which and by no means least is not having enforced neutering on non-LOOF cats throughout the country, with a clear layout of towns and a real commitment from the State and public services.

The Chatipi programme that we are developing cannot fulfil the educational mission for stray cats and resolve the national problem that they are faced with alone. There are currently fifteen million cats in French homes and double the number of dogs. And almost as many are having to get by alone in our streets, endure the harsh elements, hunger, thirst, and sometimes human violence. Because in our country, no less than eleven million cats are stray in towns, villages, and the countryside. This figure, reported a few years ago, is without doubt very underestimated today.

In pounds, if a cat is not microchipped, it will be killed after the eight required days if it is not claimed or transferred into a rescue centre… if it is not overloaded as is unfortunately the case everywhere.

Individuals must shoulder their responsibilities. Living with one or more cats is not inconsequential. They need us, their supposed independence conceals a great vulnerability. They cannot survive on the streets. No litter should be born there, far away from the sight and protection of humans. Each kitten must be microchipped and neutered before six months of age, and public services must invest hugely in neutering stray cats. In each commune. Pounds and rescue centres are structurally lacking in resources; the State must intervene.

On the weekend of 10 and 11 December, our activists will be out on the streets throughout France (in Aix-en-Provence, Amiens, Gap, Golfe Juan, La Rochelle, Lille, Lyon, Nice, Paris, Tours, Troyes, and on 14 December in Bordeaux), to raise awareness of feline straying and of possible and effective solutions: systematic neutering of non-LOOF cats and the fight against compulsive buying on the internet, particularly with the upcoming holidays.

You can sign our petitions for an urgent plan for stray cats, but also for better protection for cats and dogs, our companions.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Blood farms: when animal testing serves the profitability of European farms

Blood farms: when animal testing serves the profitability of European farms
06.12.2022
International
Blood farms: when animal testing serves the profitability of European farms
Animal testing

From porthole cows to rapidly grown chickens, it is hard to imagine a more horrific treatment than that reserved for pregnant mares whose blood is taken for the eCG hormone, used in French breeding farms to schedule ovulation and births. We wrote to Gircor three months ago. Welfarm have just revealed new footage.

For decades, public organisations have defended animal testing, particularly when it involves livestock animals. This is how the INRA [French National Institute for Agricultural Research], who has been looking to increase productivity of animals farmed for their meat or fluids since the 1960s, has more recently become involved in the foie gras industry, while the Ministry of Agriculture defended the use of porthole cows.

Zootechnics and animal testing

These animal testing practices reveal what we call zootechnics, which study and carry out tests on breeding conditions and animal exploitation. Every time, you can hear the words ‘animal welfare’ being echoed in the background.

But it is hard to imagine a more horrific treatment than that reserved for pregnant mares whose blood is taken to produce the eCG hormone, used in French breeding farms to schedule ovulation and births.

The horror of blood farms, from South America to Iceland

In South America, after four months of pregnancy and heavy blood tests, these mares are aborted manually, without any anaesthesia, to then be made pregnant again and subjected to the same treatment until they are so exhausted that they cannot be used.

Uncovering the footage circulated in France by Welfarm in 2017 and 2018, French companies ended up turning to Iceland, where pregnancies are carried to term and the foals sent to the abattoir. But the footage taken in 2021 shows that the situation in Iceland is no better than in South America.

A new investigation from the Animal Welfare Foundation | Tierschutzbund Zürich (AWF|TSB) in South America, carried out in 2021 and 2022, reveals that the situation is not getting better: mares are beaten, injured without being treated, malnourished, and neglected…

The eCG hormone in France

France is the only recipient in the European Union of the eCG powder produced by the Syntex company in Uruguay for astronomical amounts.

According to a French specialist questioned in 2017, the use of the eCG hormone is “almost systematic in breeding farms for goats and sheep [in France], in order to ensure milk production all year round. eCG is also used widely to schedule births and to increase the number of piglets per sow.

This is the “double disaster” reported: mares are farmed and mistreated elsewhere in the world to allow French breeding farms to better profit from their farming of sows, cows, sheep, and goats.

And eCG is the source of a third disaster: its use inevitably involves tests on animals. As long as they support a breeding system that is unnecessary, these tests, such as the production of eCG, are not vital and must therefore be considered illegal under rural legislation.

What the authorities concerned are saying

In 2017, the Ordre national des vétérinaires [National Association of Veterinarians] hid behind ‘animal welfare’ and the impossibility of knowing precisely where the eCG used in France comes from to avoid having to come down unfavourably on its use.

Three months ago, we sent a letter to Gircor, a French animal testing lobby, in order to see if they would go so far as to justify tests and practices that cause suffering to serve a breeding system that is not necessary. We have not received a reply…

What can you do?

If these practices outrage you as they do us, sign the petition requesting a pure and simple ban on the production and importation of the eCG hormone within the European Union.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Wild boar head left on a pathway: we are writing to the appropriate authorities

Wild boar head left on a pathway: we are writing to the appropriate authorities
05.12.2022
Gard
Wild boar head left on a pathway: we are writing to the appropriate authorities
Wildlife

We were informed about photos taken on 5 December of a wild boar’s head left on a public bench in the town of Saint-Maurice-de-Cazevieille (Gard). We have just written to the town hall, the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB, the hunting police in particular), and the Gard Prefecture.

A wild boar’s head, cut off, was put down and left on a public bench in a town in Gard. Beyond the cruelty of this act, the total absence of respect for the animal killed, and the shock undoubtedly caused to passers-by – particularly children – by the sight of an abandoned wild boar head, this act is a criminal offence.

We have written to the appropriate authorities (the town hall, OFB, and Prefecture), because this head could legally be considered as litter, which is the responsibility of the town hall; additionally, the animal could have been killed outside of any rules applicable to hunting, which is the responsibility of both the OFB and the Prefecture…

Just for abandoning this animal’s body part on a public road could risk up to two years of imprisonment and a €75,000 fine. If in addition the regulations on hunting had not been followed… Faced with acts of provocation by hunters, we think that checks should be increased.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Puppy show in Bourg-en-Bresse: an open letter to Town Mayor Jean-François Debat

Puppy show in Bourg-en-Bresse: an open letter to Town Mayor Jean-François Debat
02.12.2022
Ain
Puppy show in Bourg-en-Bresse: an open letter to Town Mayor Jean-François Debat
Domestic animals

While selling cats and dogs in pet shops should be banned by 2024, ‘puppy shows’ do not seem close to giving up the lucrative trade of pets. We condemn this practice and are writing an open letter to the Bourg-en-Bresse local council, who welcomed a ‘puppy show’ on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 December.

Strasbourg, 2 December 2022

Dear Mayor,

We have been informed that a ‘puppy show’ is being held in Bourg-en-Bresse on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 December.

One Voice, whose purpose is to protect and defend animals and nature, are worried about the image being spread by this ‘show’ and about the fact that your town is encouraging the trade of pets, going against the tide of what our society really needs.

The law against animal abuse enacted in November 2022 banned the sale of puppies and kittens in pet shops and increased sanctions in cases of abuse against them.

A ‘puppy show’… Like a ‘car show’? Very young sentient beings being sold like cars? Don’t even! Because unlike car buyers, puppy ‘consumers’ mostly do not take the trouble to think before going ahead with their purchase. They will buy a baby Australian Shepherd just like they bought themselves a jumper to then be resold on Vinted. Or succumb to a kitten like they do a pair of shoes that they will return because they make their feet hurt. Without realising that welcoming an animal into your home means committing to caring for them for fifteen years and that this new arrival in the house represents a profound change. These shows give little information to their clients, who are often unaware of the consequences of this compulsive purchase, of sharing a happy life with their new companion, cute though it may be.

We must also remember that these commercial events involving living beings encourage breeding in abusive conditions for those being bred. To keep making more profit, they must keep producing more puppies.

In a context where rescue centres are overpopulated, where the price of food has skyrocketed, where keeping a ‘pet’ is more and more expensive, it would have been really useful to organise a show which puts cats and dogs up for adoption, with the support of associations in your region. Visitors would have received tailored information, without pressure, with the certainty that their decision would be right, respecting both animals and humans.

In November 2020, we had already written to you about your policy regarding animals. Today, we are urging you to stop welcoming and promoting these shows that objectify animals instead of educating about them, and only increase the number of animals abused or abandoned in your area.

Our Association is ready to give our expertise with regard to policies concerning pet animals and remains available to you for any request for additional information.

We thank you for your attention to this letter and ask that you accept our highest consideration, Mr Mayor.

Muriel Arnal, President

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Animal testing like you have never seen

Animal testing like you have never seen
01.12.2022
France
Animal testing like you have never seen
Animal testing

Thanks to relentless work carried out in the spring with the aim of providing the public with a complete representation of current practices in France in animal testing, One Voice has today unveiled an interactive web page combining explanations and analyses. An important and accessible resource for the general public and journalists.

Although they have not distributed them, the Ministry of Research has detailed figures on animal testing, such as those declared by laboratories. This data, much more interesting than the ‘statistical surveys’ that were published late and strewn with typos and omissions, have been obtained by One Voice on request from the Ministry.

Since the start of the year, we have analysed them and formatted them to better inform you. Today we have revealed a new version, expanded considerably, of our dedicated page on the experimentation-animale.com site, better documented than the Ministry’s statistical surveys.

Detailed and current information

Firstly, the species used are detailed. Together with mice, dogs, macaques and zebrafish, whose use is well-known, we show that laboratories exploit hedgehogs, wild boars, dolphins, canaries, salmon, foxes, turkeys, and sardines, among so many animals grouped in the ‘other’ categories of the statistics published.

Our page also shows the data concerning the types of research and the levels of pain and stress inflicted on animals, always accompanied with examples of project summaries approved in 2022 by the Ministry and that can be shared on Twitter. What better way to get informed to respond to those who claim that we only inform on practices from the 1980s!

Annotated graphs and a dictionary

All of the graphs available on the page are accompanied by an annotation regarding the chosen species. Even those who are not comfortable with graphs will therefore have access to important information.

Finally, we have written a small animal testing ‘glossary’, available on a separate page, but also directly on the main page, in order to guide people who are not yet familiar with terms such as ‘zootechnics’, ‘no wake procedure’, or ‘routine production’.

A resource for journalists

Beyond its benefits for the general public, we hope that journalists will use this page as an indispensable resource to report on recent and tangible animal testing practices in France, in order to increase the debate by surpassing subterfuge in the industry and obscurity by public authorities.

We are available to the media to provide complete datasets, which contain even more details than we can publish at this time.

And then?

In fact, this page will not stop there: it has been created to expand over the years with new French figures, but also with detailed research goals included in graphs (types of toxicity testing for the purpose of basic research, including diseases studied in applied research), a comparison against figures from other European countries, the possibility of grouping several species on one graph, and numerous other functionalities.

Do not hesitate to write to us if you come across any problems while exploring this resource, if you notice any errors or typos, or if you would like to see any further definitions or new functionalities.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Two foxes hung at the entrance of town: One Voice is launching a witness appeal

Two foxes hung at the entrance of town: One Voice is launching a witness appeal
29.11.2022
Saône-et-Loire
Two foxes hung at the entrance of town: One Voice is launching a witness appeal
Wildlife

Two foxes have been hung at the entrance of the Dracy-Saint-Loup town on 28 November. One Voice are rising up against this act of cruelty. For the time being, the perpetrators have not been identified. One Voice is launching an appeal to anyone who has information so that they can be pursued and sentenced.

On 28 November 2022, the inhabitants of the Dracy-Saint-Loup town (Saône-et-Loire) have discovered with horror the bodies of two foxes hung on the entrance sign of their town. Having been informed, the Mayor contacted the police who recorded the facts and removed the foxes. Because they did not have any information allowing them to identify those responsible, for now the Mayor has not referred the matter to the public prosecutor.

Beyond the monstrosity of this staged event, these acts constitute a criminal offence and must not remain unpunished.

Killing wild animals is, in France, subject to hunting legislation. The ignorance of these rules can be heavily punished, with penalties ranging from a simple fine to imprisonment. Additionally, the foxes’ corpses could be considered as ‘litter’ on a legal level. Abandoning them on a public road constitutes a crime punishable by a two-year prison sentence and a €75,000 fine. The perpetrators of these acts must be pursued and sentenced.

Animals referred to as ‘pests’, such as those who are protected, in the firing line of authorities

If foxes are classified as a ‘species likely to cause damage’, it is to satisfy the impulses — sorry, we have to say the passions — of hunters.
Because even when animals are protected, authorities publish exemption after exemption… Clearly, when the State itself takes pleasure in considering animals as ‘pests’, how can these animals be respected, protected, even simply left in peace?

We are asking witnesses to protest!

The One Voice Association is therefore launching an appeal and is offering a sum of €10,000 to anyone who can give solid information that can formally identify, beyond any reasonable doubt, those responsible for these acts, asking them to email us at info@one-voice.fr.

This information will be sent to the public prosecutor in the context of a complaint by the Association.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Historical ruling: the circus trainer of the ten tigers seized, has been heavily convicted!

Historical ruling: the circus trainer of the ten tigers seized, has been heavily convicted!
28.11.2022
France
Historical ruling: the circus trainer of the ten tigers seized, has been heavily convicted!
Exploitation for shows

Thanks to the endless work by One Voice with its investigations and legal proceedings, the Beauvais Tribunal has just convicted Mario Masson as being guilty of crimes of mistreatment of animals committed by a professional and of improper operation of an establishment keeping non-domestic animals from 2019 to 2020, illegal acquisition and transfer of animals, and breaches of employment law and fraud. Finally, he is prohibited from engaging in any activity relating to animals for two years, associated with two years of ineligibility and a fine. In total, he must pay off €246,000 to various stakeholders in the case.

According to Muriel Arnal, President of One Voice:

«It is the first time in France that a circus trainer has been found guilty of mistreatment of animals with the aggravated circumstance of being a professional. It is an historic ruling. What a huge satisfaction knowing that the tigers will not return to the lorry-cage in the courtyard of the abandoned factory where they were enclosed for 24 hours every day, as our footage shows! We will continue to lead these investigations and to bring them before the legal system to highlight the horrors that circus animals live in. We had to suffer a lot of setbacks before this victory; it is all the more strong. A big thank you to all those who believed in our unfailing determination for these tigers and who have supported us in the face of adversity.»

The tribunal ruled that the tigers and equipment would be confiscated permanently and that the Tonga Terre d’Accueil — the refuge that we chose to welcome the animals — and we must in particular receive repayment of the sum spent on the ten tigers since them being seized in the name of justice in December 2020. The State and the URSSAF must also receive the sum linked in particular to the secret work that Masson was involved in.

We have known Mario Masson since 2005; then he kept two terribly mistreated elephants. The investigation to initiate the complaint to the prosecutor was one of the most risky, but it was essential: our previous complaints had been dismissed. The seizure was done in total secrecy because he bred tigers to sell the babies when they were scarcely even a few days old, and some knew and turned a blind eye. The hearing lasted more than 8 hours, and was led for us by Maitre Caroline Lanty.

Since them being seized almost two years ago, we have also offered these tigers a new life far away from the lorry-cage in which they stagnated for such a long time. Far from training and their prison guards, they have been taken over by an attentive team. They have been able to discover grass and benefit from the simple joy of running and hiding, all while making the most of the enrichment at their disposal. An enclosure is currently being built to take them to a partner sanctuary.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

‘Music-loving’ rats: what the media is forgetting

‘Music-loving’ rats: what the media is forgetting
25.11.2022
International
‘Music-loving’ rats: what the media is forgetting
Animal testing

In mid-November, several newspapers reported on a Japanese experiment showing that rats synchronise their head movements with a musical beat. But all of them have forgotten to talk about the suffering endured by the rats for this experiment: the devices screwed to their skulls, depriving them of water, brain surgery, and death.

From the ‘quirky’ column of Radio Classique to the affirmation that “this experiment [can] seem cute and unimportant” on a private blog, passing by an inserted image of a rat playing the saxophone in Futura-Sciences and la Dépêche and by the idea that “in addition to having a sense of rhythm, rats also have taste” in the Huffington Post, you would have thought that the rats had fun listening to Mozart or Queen.

A gulf between press communications and reality

But, as quickly pointed out on Twitter by Sébastien Moro (Cervelle d’Oiseau), a populariser in ethology, reading the original study you are very quickly disillusioned.

Firstly, no article mentions that it involved 23 rats aged from nine to ten weeks, or that the declaration from the Japanese team had forgotten to specify the sex of these animals — an important specification, if only to avoid the methodological biases and problems with reproductive experiments.

No mention of suffering

The articles that talk about the accelerometer attached to the heads of ten rats do not explain the fact that the box made to keep the apparatus in place has been screwed to the skull of the rats after drilling holes in it, then reinforced with cement.

Furthermore, no article explains that the rats have been deprived of water in order to motivate them to stand on two legs to reach a bottle kept up high, so as to better observe their head movements. This “motivation” has been developed over several days during repeated sessions of thirty minutes, until they learn to stand up immediately upon entering the assessment box.

Too many experiments

Worse: even in the article from TrustMyScience, which talks a little more than the others about other hypotheses and the methodology of the study, we have not found any mention of the electrophysiological experiment that followed, during which thirteen remaining rats were subjected to brain surgery under anaesthetic to implant electrodes through the skull and damage one of their two eardrums, with the aim of analysing the activity of the auditory cortex.

And no one wants to remind you that all of the rats have been killed following the experiments.

An unacceptable situation nowadays

Clearly, having avoided all potentially controversial aspects of media coverage, the ethical discussion did not appear anywhere in the media. However, animal ethics specialists do exist (thinking in particular about the signatories of the recent Montreal Declaration).

In any event, it does not seem acceptable nowadays to qualify studies as “quirky” or “cute” when they involve making animals suffer and killing them to serve our own interests.

One Voice has written to the editorial staff of the media involved as well as the Agence France Presse (AFP: a French international news agency) to bring this situation to their attention and we are awaiting a response.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Traditional hunting: the ministerial decrees by the Ministry of the Ecological Transition annulled by the State Council

Traditional hunting: the ministerial decrees by the Ministry of the Ecological Transition annulled by the State Council
23.11.2022
France
Traditional hunting: the ministerial decrees by the Ministry of the Ecological Transition annulled by the State Council
Wildlife

Unsurprisingly, the State Council has annulled the 2021 ministerial decrees on traditional hunting which were already suspended in 2021, thus confirming their illegality. One Voice is pleased with this confirmation and that they stopped at nothing for the little birds affected by this cruel hunting, defended year after year by the LPO before judges of the highest French administrative jurisdiction.

The traditional hunting techniques concerned, snares, nets, and cages (traps in the form of collapsible nets and drop cages), have once again been ruled as non-selective and satisfactory alternatives exist. The decrees implemented in 2022 have, incidentally, already been urgently suspended.

Today’s victory leaves a bitter taste. When we think that these unjust authorisations have been issued despite opposing and repeated decisions (up to the Court of Justice of the European Union) and year upon year, by a Ministry of the “ecological transition”, it sends shivers down your spine. What does the future hold? Will the Ministry still disregard the State Council’s opinion, or will it finally respect the law? Muriel Arnal President of One Voice

We hope that 2022 will be the last year that we see the Ministry of Ecology, who are supposed to defend biodiversity and that which constitutes it, sign decrees authorising trapping and killing larks — and so many other little birds along the way — in this way.

What if animal defenders as a whole were not there to permanently defend animals against authorities who, in fact, break the law? How come the ministry in charge of representing animals is in fact the organiser of their killing?

We do not expect anything from the Ministry that is only ecological by name. We are preparing ourselves to counter their next decrees with our appeals which will deliver wildlife and birds to hunters whose only pleasure is destroying our heritage that is already so vulnerable due to global warming and the collapse of biodiversity. Muriel Arnal President of One Voice

Translated from the French by Joely Justice