France bans hobby hunting with limed sticks
The EU Commission forces France to ban the cruel practice of liming birds. In Switzerland and Germany, this method has long been prohibited.
In Switzerland and Germany, hunting laws prohibit the catching or killing of animals using «lime and other adhesive substances».
Although a European directive has banned the hunting of birds with limed sticks since 1979, the practice was permitted in France on a limited basis. The government has now decided to ban the practice — which has been sharply criticised by animal welfare advocates and the European Commission — starting this autumn.
As reported by, among others, Le Point, hobby hunters are not permitted this year to catch blackbirds and thrushes using sticks coated with adhesive and placed in trees. The birds were subsequently locked in cages and used to lure other birds. The government set a quota of 42,000 birds for these two species for 2019. They were permitted to be hunted and subjected to cruelty exclusively in five départements in the south-east. France is the last country in Europe to now put an end to this form of animal cruelty.
European Commission steps in
The European Commission had most recently warned France in early July to end this «illegal form of hunting» and to review permitted practices. In addition to the hunting of thrushes with limed sticks, the Commission is particularly critical of the trapping of larks with nets. These are non-selective methods which, under France's bird protection regulation of 2009, are only permitted in exceptional circumstances.
Although the Macron government decided to ban the method condemned by animal welfare advocates starting in autumn, it simultaneously made clear that quotas for other traditional forms of hunting would remain in effect. For example, around 17,000 turtle doves are permitted to be killed in France this year as well. The Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) and the Bavarian Ornithological Society (LBV) named the turtle dove Bird of the Year 2020, noting that two million individuals are killed every year in the EU alone.
The bird protection organization «Ligue de protection des oiseaux» (LPO) reports that, encouragingly, the pressure from the European Commission has finally put an end to hunting with glue sticks. At the same time, President Allain Bougrain Dubourg expressed frustration over the decision to allow continued hunting of the turtle dove, an endangered species. «They certainly had to give the hunters this gift as well«, he remarked.
The LPO has taken legal action on multiple occasions against traditional hunting methods. In a video, the animal welfare advocates show how glue sticks are used — revealing that instead of blackbirds and thrushes, it is often entirely different birds such as robins, warblers, and tits that become unable to escape the sticky traps.
