The legal system is trampled all over in the Pyrénées-Orientales: we are counterattacking for the partridges!
The Pyrénées-Orientales Prefect has again authorised the slaughter of almost 500 grey mountain partridges; we are going back to the courts.
A few days ago, the Montpellier Administrative Tribunal proved us right and suspended the hunting of grey mountain partridges in the Pyrénées-Orientales before the season even started. As we feared, the Prefect is standing up to the legal system and has just urgently passed a new decree, authorising the killing of nearly 500 birds. We are attacking this decision with an emergency interim proceeding. The hearing will take place on 26 September at 2:30pm at the Montpellier Administrative Tribunal.
Photo: faaf – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Updated 28 September 2023:
On 27 September 2023, the Montpellier Administrative Tribunal rejected our request. A doubly incomprehensible decision: the judge completely changed their position in a few weeks and validated the Prefect’s method of trampling on a court decision by passing a new decree the day after its suspension. Even if it will not bring back the lives of the partridges in the Pyrénées-Orientales, we will continue to fight to get this decision cancelled.
When the Pyrénées-Orientales Prefect wipes his feet with grey mountain partridges…
Although we have obtained a ban on hunting before the season opens on 17 September, the Prefect has passed a new decree on 8 September 2023 (p.52) authorising the massacre of almost 500 birds. This time he has set a limit at department level and in different areas of the land. This hardly matters given the danger these birds face. Yet more proof that hunters have no respect for animals: they want to kill, even if they put their own population’s lives in danger.
It is a repeated full-frontal attack against animals and biodiversity carried out by hunters and the Pyrénées-Orientales Prefecture. Like all mountain Galliformes, grey partridges are classified as being ‘near threatened’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). To put it clearly, this species is likely to disappear in the wild within a few years. The cause, obviously, is climate change, but also hunting, which decimates hundreds of individuals each year.
… and the law!
We are once again stunned by this decision by the State, which continues to allow hunters to satisfy their morbid passion, but which is also ready to trample on a court decision, as it did already for badger digging or even still for traditional hunting.
All too often, the viewpoint of public interest defended by prefects is limited to satisfying the demands of hunters, disregarding animals, and the warning cries of the associations that defend them. Today, it is the grey mountain partridges who are paying with their lives. France kills its birds who are among the biggest victims of the sixth mass extinction at play.
For these emblematic beings from the summits of the Pyrenees, we are attacking this decree with an emergency interim proceeding.
And we invite you now to question the Pyrénées-Orientales Prefect on social media (@Prefet66) and by email (ddtm@pyrenees-orientales.gouv.fr):
Dear Prefect, reverse your decision and repeal the second scandalous decree allowing partridge hunting, that was in fact suspended after a first emergency interim proceeding by @OneVoiceAnimal! https://one-voice.fr/news/la-justice-pietinee-dans-les-pyrenees-orientales-nous-contre-attaquons-pour-les-perdrix/
Translated from the French by Joely Justice