French court extends legal ban on traditional bird hunting techniques

France’s highest administrative court has banned another range of traditional bird hunting techniques. This decision follows the ban on glue trapping in June. The decision was welcomed by environmental pressure groups but denounced by hunters.

Among the techniques prohibited by the latest Council of State judgment are hunting with nets or bird cages, popular practices in southwest France and in the Ardennes region in the east of the country.

The new ruling revokes exemptions granted by the government to allow the hunting of birds such as lapwing, golden plovers, larks, thrushes and blackbirds after a 2009 EU directive that banned mass hunting of birds of any kind. their species.

The court said the government has failed to prove that such techniques are necessary and that “the mere idea of ​​preserving so-called ‘traditional’ methods is not enough to authorize them.”

The EU Court of Justice said in March that the use of glue traps caused “irreparable damage” to captured thrushes and blackbirds.

Campaigners say 150,000 birds die each year in France from non-selective hunting techniques such as glue traps and nets at a time when Europe’s bird population is declining sharply.

“A huge victory for the birds”

The League for the Protection of Birds (LPO), one of the groups behind the complaint, said it was time for the government to formally ban practices that “come from another age.”

“While biodiversity is collapsing and with it bird populations, France has had to be brought up against the wall by the threat of an exemplary condemnation by the Court of Justice of the EU”, said the president from the LPO, Allain Bougrain-Dubourg.

The other organization behind the complaint, One Voice, said 100,000 birds were killed each year because of exemptions banned in the latest judgment. “It’s a huge victory for the birds,” he said.

The National Federation of Hunters of France, however, said the decision was “devoid of any serious basis” and pledged to explore all other legal avenues.

“For us, traditional hunts are the very essence of our passion for hunting and will always be at the heart of the defense of our hunting practices”, declared its president Willy Schraen.