Stuffed animal trafficking: three men are going before the Nancy Legal Tribunal on 13 October
As long as animals are silent victims of trafficking, One Voice will fight for their rights and their lives.
It is not the season for animal trafficking. This abominable practice continues to thrive all the time, all year round, everywhere. Most often remaining in the shadows of the networks that cover them, traffickers enjoy unbearable impunity. Fortunately, their sordid and illegal activities are sometimes brought to light. A poacher-dealer and two of his buyers from eastern France had to answer for their actions before the Nancy magistrates’ court on October 13. One Voice was the plaintiff.
Update from 18 October 2023:
The ruling has just reached us.
Although the prosecution, unfortunately, had dropped certain charges against the two buyers during the hearing, they were still condemned by the court for their illegal acquisitions of ‘stuffed’ animals. As a punishment, none of their macabre trophies will be returned to them.
As for the poacher-seller, the court sentenced him to 12 months in prison, including 6 months suspended, accompanied by a ban on any professional or commercial activity related to animals for 5 years and the obligation to publish the ruling at his own expense.
We therefore still welcome a decision commensurate with the seriousness of the facts, and which will prevent a possible recurrence.
Circuses and poaching at the heart of concealing skins for taxidermists to use
This case is sadly reminiscent of the one linked to the trainers from Nouveau Cirque Triomphe as well as the taxidermist that our investigation led us to, and for which a case will once again be brought before the courts on 18 October in Grenoble. Coming from circuses, breeding farms, zoos, or trophy hunts, lions, tigers, giraffes, and monkeys in particular are the subject of a very lucrative underground trade. To fight against this, we have successfully attacked the ministerial decree allowing the relaxation of authorisations for keeping wild animals.
Once again, here is a perfect example of the fact that wild animals never benefit from any respite. At any moment, they can find themselves torn from their natural environment. Even when they are not killed immediately, it won’t be long before there is no one to witness their ordeal. Disorientated and terrorised, they find themselves far from their own kind, in hostile territory, kept in conditions that are not compatible with their needs, and with the sole aim of waiting for death.
The sole objective of these intolerable massacres is to satisfy the morbid aesthetic tastes of a few people and to increase the wealth of others who, devoid of empathy, would trade anything as long as it makes them money.
An investigation with a thousand twists and turns
The investigation led by the OFB brought to light large-scale trafficking. More than 500 skins of ‘stuffed’ animals from species as varied as they are rare have been rescued throughout the whole of France.
The defendants were tried last Friday for the purchase, importation, keeping, and unauthorised transfer of CITES and protected species non-domestic animal species. Two of them were buyers, and the third a dealer and poacher.
Of course, we were there to demand justice for all of the animals sacrificed at the altar of profit.
The deliberation is set for 18 October. We hope that the decision will live up to our expectations. It is high time that these animals’ daily lives are not fear-filled for traffickers’ gain!
Translated from the French by Joely Justice