When prefects gag judges, animals pay the price! We're going to court!
From traditional bird hunting to the underground hunting of badgers, by way of derogations to scare and kill animals of protected species, our legal actions save thousands of lives every year. But as always, the authorities know how to use their boundless imagination to put obstacles in our way. So we’ve decided to tackle the particularly unfair ploy of prefectures to publish animal-targeted decrees after they’ve come into force. We have lodged an appeal with the French State Council and launched new proceedings today.
To protect them, every minute counts. Once the decree has been issued, even under emergency procedures, it is difficult to obtain hearings for at least ten days. In the meantime, hunters have plenty of time to kill with impunity.
Prefectures that publish their orders….. after the animals have died!
In some departments, prefectures have got into the habit of publishing decisions the day before they come into force, or even… several days later! In Indre-et-Loire, for example, in June 2024 the prefect issued twelve deeds authorizing an administrative fox beat hunt… in the month of May! We took the matter to court all the same, but it was impossible for us to prevent the massacre, even though the administrative beat hunts were illegal. In Ariège, in 2023, we challenged the decrees authorizing the scaring of bears, which are regularly made public after the start of operations, which last only a few days… Just like in the Haute-Garonne department, where the prefect issued three decrees this month, deliberately published late. The aim of this unfair strategy is clear: to prevent bear defenders from challenging prefectoral measures. We have taken urgent legal action to put an end to these fraudulent maneuvers.
As soon as January 2023, we launched a legal action against the Pyrénées-Orientales prefecture. Our aim: to have this practice recognized as illegal. In dozens of other departments, decisions permitting the killing of animals are still made public far too late.
To combat these discreetly committed massacres, we are taking our case to the French State Council.
Even though the law is already largely favorable to hunters, allowing them to kill without limit all year round, including through cruel practices such as digging up, it is all the more intolerable to prevent our action. Because once the decrees have taken effect, the badgers, foxes, birds, etc. (the list goes on and on) are dead, and no court decision can bring them back to life.
The shenanigans have gone on long enough! In January 2023, we asked the Prime Minister and the Minister of Ecological Transition to ensure that the law was respected. After several months of waiting, and in the absence of any response from them, we referred the matter to the French State Council. Our demands are clear: that the government respect the law, so that we can, whenever necessary, go to court to save lives.
To support this fight, sign our petition for a radical reform of hunting!