Poaching in Isère: night-time horror. The hearing is on 5 February in Valence
In Isère, One Voice is demanding justice for animals who are victims of four poacher-hunters in Valence.
In May 2023, a few inhabitants of a village in Isère were woken up by gun shots during the night. The next day, animals’ bodies were found. In the weeks that followed, history repeated itself. The police found a number of bodies: foxes, squirrels, deer. Killed by hunters who were not worried about following the law to satisfy their morbid passion. In memory of these animals, we are asking for exemplary punishments for the four poachers who admitted to this. The hearing is on 5 February 2024 at 3:30pm at the Valence legal tribunal.
Updated 8 February
We will have to wait a bit longer before getting justice for the animals killed. The hearing for the four poachers that was set for 5 February at the Valence legal tribunal was postponed to 14 October 2024 at 8:30am. For the foxes, squirrels, deer, ibex, and buzzards, we remain more determined than ever. To the poachers – who have admitted to this – see you in October!
Photo credit: Drôme Police Force – Facebook
Protected or not, it does not matter: the only objective is to kill animals
In these small villages in Isère, foxes, deer, and squirrels did not stand a chance. The four men pursued them at night from their four-wheel drive car equipped with multiple headlights piercing the darkness: blind, the animals were trapped. The men shot; gunfire broke the silence. Where the animal’s head once was, only a scrap of flesh remained. They undoubtedly celebrated this result.
Attacking foxes, of which almost a million are killed each year without even counting poaching, and who suffer the horror of underground hunting with hounds: hours of being hunted down before being violently killed, including, often, the fox cubs… what an ‘achievement’. Deer and squirrels are also targeted: in short, any animal that passes by and can be killed.
And for animals belonging to a protected species,who are the object of all desire, a specific treatment is in store: parts of their bodies are cut off and proudly displayed around houses. During the investigation, ibex heads were found. As for the buzzards, the heads did not interest them: they were happy with cutting off their legs to keep at home.
Hunting or poaching: there is no difference for the animals!
Today, if these men are being prosecuted, it is not for having killed these animals, but among other things for having hunted at night, from a vehicle… Because the main objective of the law is not to protect animals, but hunters, and to ensure that they are the only ones who can kill with impunity. Clearly, their representatives will turn against them and, as always, look to ostracise them by playing ‘good’ hunters off against ‘bad’ ones. And of course they will ask for financial compensation. Not to repair the lives stolen from these animals, but because a deer killed by these poachers is one less for others to kill.
Some of the victims were found. For the others, if they aren’t found, they won’t be caught! How many animals have been massacred without leaving a trace, whose bodies are left where they were killed? The problem is not so much the fact that these animals were not killed ‘following the rules’, but that they were killed at all.
So yes, poachers must receive an exemplary punishment, but let’s not forget: the real problem is hunting, not the word that designates who it is that is holding the gun! Together, we are still and will always be demanding a radical reform of this “hobby” to put an end to massacres!
Translated from the French by Joely Justice