France: Hunting Stations Destroyed by Activists
In France, animal rights activists have destroyed several hunting stations. The action is directed against the controversial bird hunting practices.
These are images that animal abusers won't like.
Hobby hunters in the south of France are dismayed. Within a short period of time, their cruel facilities were repeatedly destroyed, due to a trapping technique for blackbirds and thrushes practised by them in Provence, which is highly controversial.
«This is a real commando operation«, fumes Eric Camoin. «There are several of them who came here to survey the situation and then destroy everything – on a full moon night!» Fourteen days earlier, similar acts of destruction had been recorded in the départements of Vaucluse and Var. Near the destroyed posts, inscriptions were found calling hunters murderers, or left by animal rights activists.
The chairman of the national association for the defence of traditional thrush hunting, who invited the press on site to express his «exasperation», said: «This is the tenth time this has happened.» He said: «Whether you like these practices or not, that is a separate debate. I am not asking anyone to love hunting. Everyone is free to have their own opinion. But at a certain point, you cannot allow yourself to do anything and simply destroy things like that«.
A hunt that stirs debate
«Glue hunting is part of ourheritage», says Gérard Guidice, president of the hunting association of Marignane. «Here we are in Provence. When you attack this type of hunting, you attack our culture!» The glue-based hunting practised mainly in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur is indeed regularly condemned by environmentalists and animal welfare advocates.
At the end of August, Emmanuel Macron decided to suspend glue hunting for this season — a practice condemned by environmentalists and bird protection advocates. With this gesture, he was also responding to orders from the European Commission, which had given France three months at the beginning of July to put an end to this impermissible hunting method, which is prohibited by a 2009 directive unless an exemption applies.
There are associations that stir up hatred against this practice, and the groups behind them do the dirty work, according to Eric Camoin.
«We have filed complaints», says Eric Camoin. «But the gendarmes and police officers don't even bother to show up. They don't care. They take the complaints and file them away. We can't go on like this.«
«One day we will go after the perpetrators«, says a hunter from Marseille who prefers to remain anonymous. We'll get them. We manage to hunt every kind of animal, so we'll get them too! This is not a death threat, it's a warning…». Eric Camoin is concerned: «There is going to be a drama. There will be a disaster, because sooner or later we will find them. We will not give up and we will manage to find out who it is. If a hunter comes across someone in the act of destroying a post, I don't know how that person will react!«
France remains the only EU country that still permits glue hunting. Hunters are calling for swift intervention by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, at the risk of recreational hunters taking the law into their own hands.
