A month and a half after the opening of the season, some Gironde hunters are already putting away some of their equipment, but not their annoyance. This Monday evening, the Council of State disowned the government by suspending traditional hunts (thrushes, blackbirds, lapwing, golden plovers, skylarks with pantes or matoles). The argument used to counter the decrees taken by the government: there is a “serious doubt as to their legality” because they would risk clashing with European law.
I am entitled to 300 larks per hunting season, I only catch 50 – Jean De Cerval, hunter in Bazas
“It is still a European law totally disconnected from rurality that is falling on us“, plague Jean De Cerval. He has been hunting the phantom lark in Bazas for 35 years whereas his family started over a century ago on this land. “It is an ancestral tradition, we find postcards in the Landes where we see these types of hunting. The withdrawals are really very low. The regulations stipulate that we have the right to catch 300 larks per year but I rather catch 50 for my part“, he says, statement of direct debit in support. He regrets a cruel decision, in his opinion, who “punishes a minority because there are about a hundred hunters who practice this. I’m sad and sickened“.
Poaching and alternative hunting methods, retorts the LPO
On the other side, the Bird Protection League welcomes this decision, but remains moderate. “We have nevertheless seen the government attempt to reintroduce these traditional hunts.“, tempers its general manager Yves Verilhac. The latter wishes to remind that there are other ways of hunting, for example, the lark:”You can also hunt it with a rifle. But according to the latest estimates, nearly 200,000 were killed with rifles, mainly in the Southwest. It is a species that has lost nearly 30% of its workforce in 15 years, not just because of the trapping, but is it worth adding more?“
We know very well that France is one of the European champions of poaching […] There is also a lot of hypocrisy around these practices – Yves Verilhac, General Manager of the LPO
Yves Verilhac also wants dismantle the argument of a low levy : “This is the tip of the iceberg. We know very well that France is one of the European champions of poaching. About 500,000 passerines are sold under cover in our country, half of which is for consumption. There is also a lot of hypocrisy around these practices.“For its part, the National Federation of Hunters, through its lawyer, specifies that these hunts are supervised and subject to quotas in the departments that are concerned. For example, 106,500 skylarks could be hunted at most this season in these four departments: Gironde, Landes, Lot-et-Garonne and Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
– Yvan Plantey