Tenrecs: the prefect outdoing everyone else with hunting authorised every day?
The tenrec hunting saga continues in Réunion… Although the massacre was suspended thanks to our emergency action in front of the Saint-Denis administrative tribunal, the prefect now plans to open digging out from 15 March, every day of the week instead of the three days normally allowed. A way to satisfy hunters who, clearly, have access to the prefecture to the point where they are drafting prefectural decrees themselves…
Several thousand tenrecs used as targets… including the young
At this time of year, although the austral summer is coming to an end, tenrecs are in the middle of their breeding period. The families are growing and the young do not risk venturing out of their burrows alone. They are entirely dependent on their parents to feed them and to survive. This is the precise period in which the prefect has authorised them being hunted down and subsequently killed.
Although many hunters are attached to this traditional practice, no tradition has ever or will ever justify making animals suffer. Because for tenrecs, it is carnage: entire families are killed by dogs, and those who survive are killed by any available means.
Hunters weild their pens to be able to kill every day!
It is an understatement to say that the prefect of Réunion has taken up the cause of those digging them out. Even though the Saint-Denis administrative tribunal has definitively cancelled the 2022 decree, the prefect put out a draft decree that is identical in every aspect for consultation in 2024, which was immediately suspended by the tribunal.
A few minutes after it being put online, we discovered that the draft decree and the decree itself had been drawn up…. by the Federation of Hunters and its representatives! A wave of panic at the prefecture, which immediately suspended the consultation before opening a new one. But to our great surprise, the authors of the draft decree are still representatives from the Federation! One single thing was changed: they now plan to authorise hunting every day instead of the usual three days per week. In short, they are passing a new illegal decree to be forgiven for having passed one that was just as illegal the time before…
It is scandalous that a representative of the State defends particular interests rather than general interests for the protection of tenrecs and the natural heritage of the island. To express your dissatisfaction, participate in the consultation up until this evening!