Traditional bird hunts are again authorized in several departments, according to decrees published this Friday in the Official Journal by the Ministry of Ecological Transition. These are the hunts by means of pantes, matoles and tenderies, practices which consist in trapping the birds in cages or wire netting, in baiting them with food, to then kill them.
These practices had been judged “illegal”, on August 6, by the Council of State. The institution, seized by the League for the protection of birds (LPO) and the animal defense association One Voice, had canceled these hunting authorizations judging them “not in conformity with the requirements of European law relating to the protection of birds” provided for by European directives.
The government then let it be known, on September 15, that it was not of this opinion, by submitting the said decrees for consultation to argue that these hunts do indeed respect European law. Made official this Friday, the decrees believe that these techniques allow “to capture birds alive, without causing them bodily harm”, they defend “a way of hunting more respectful of the environment” than shooting hunting, while allowing “hunters to maintain their cultural heritage”. a “patrimony” that the hunters defended, in the street, during five rallies that brought together up to 42,000 demonstrators on September 18.
The new legal framework provides for the authorization of these techniques to capture five species of birds – the skylark, lapwing, golden plovers, thrushes and blackbirds – in five departments: the Gironde, the Landes, the Lot-et-Garonne and the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. The condition is to respect quotas fixed at 113,530 birds, in total, for the 2021-2022 season, including more than 100,000 skylarks.
In detail, in the Landes, hunters are re-authorized to hunt 56,672 field larks using pantes and 4,928 field larks using matoles. In Gironde, they are re-authorized to hunt 38,600 field larks using pantes. In the Ardennes, it is possible to hunt 1,200 lapwing with nets, 30 golden plovers and 5,800 thrushes or blackbirds. In Lot-et-Garonne, the skylark quota is set at 1,230 for hunting using tines and 2,870 for hunting using matoles. Lastly, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, the number of skylarks that can be caught using pantes is limited to 2,200.
The One Voice association let it be known on its Twitter account this Friday that it was preparing to seize the Council of State. “Our referees are leaving”, she said.
We had announced that if @Ecologie_Gouv allowed traditional hunts again, we would enter @Conseil_Etat. The decrees condemning nearly 115,000 birds have been published, our summary proceedings are leaving. # LaChasseUnProblèmeMortal #LaFranceTueSesOiseaux https://t.co/3L8H55lfMR
– One Voice (@onevoiceanimal) October 15, 2021
For its part, in a press release dated September 15, the Bird Protection League (LPO) had already considered that the orders, then in preparation, remained “illegal”. “The LPO will demand their immediate suspension before the Council of State if ever they are signed”, could we read in this press release. The LPO indicates that the skylark is classified as “minor concern” and the crested lapwing in “almost threatened” on the Red List of Threatened Species of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in France.