The decree listing species likely to cause damage has been published. As promised, we are challenging it!
On 4 August 2023, the ministerial decree listing species likely to cause damage for the next three years has just been published. We are going to the State Council.
The Ministry for the Ecological Transition has just published on 4 August 2023 the decree listing species likely to cause damage for the next three years. This law will consequently allow, via prefectural decrees, the trapping and slaughter of the animals listed on it in addition to the hunting period that they are already subjected to… Visibly preferring wildlife and animals dead rather than alive, the Ministry has therefore just published a law that also condemns hundreds of thousands of individuals.
Beyond the principle of considering animals as harmful (or pests) by nature, we also challenge this method that regulates how they are chosen, which is totally distorted from the start. The game is rigged for weasels, martens, foxes, crows… the agricultural and hunting lobbies are completely free to organise the declarations of damage on which the list is based at the French Departmental Commission for Hunting and Wildlife (CDCFS – Commission départementale de la chasse et de la faune sauvage).
If anyone still believes that the government was keen to defend wildlife and biodiversity, it is time to open their eyes. In reality, they are organising its decline in the more or less short-term. In this case as in so many others, hunting is well and truly a deadly problem.
The Ministry is deaf to public opinion
In total, 49,266 opinions were received on the public consultation led by the Ministry. 70% of participants were opposed to the classification project that they proposed – which is 5% more than the previous decree. Yet the final law is a complete copy-and-paste of this project, to which 7 out of 10 people were opposed to!
As we have announced, we are going to file, as are other associations, a plea before the State Council to fight this nonsense and to defend the animals being targeted by French authorities. Economic interests or human hobbies cannot systematically lead to the massacre of living beings who are just as significant!
Translated from the French by Joely Justice