Back to the Stone Age: since November 2005, it is again legal to catch, crush and eat thousands of Songbirds by crushing them under stone traps.
The traps, which are set up for this on the great lime plateaux east of Avignon, are among the most gruesome hunting methods for migratory birds. A trap consists of a lime stone slab weighing about one kilo, which hovers over the ground, only propped up by four twigs. Fresh juniper berries are used for bait. If a bird eats the bait, it touches the twigs and is crushed or trapped by the falling stone slab. The main victims of this literally stone age hunting method are thrushes, robins, pipits and finches, who come to south of France in large numbers to overwinter.
As many of these species are protected by the EU bird protection directive, the use of those traps, which kill at random, used to be strictly prohibited. Without any apparent necessity, Nelly Olin, who was the French minister of the environmental at the time, passed a law, which allowed the use of this horrific pastime once more. Now, 32 municipalities between the Massif Central and the Tarn Gorge allow the laying of these so-called tendelles between the beginning of November and the end of January. This petition calls for Jean-Louis Borloo, the French minister for the environment, who has been in office since June 2007, to ban this literally Stone Age tradition

Dear Mr Barloo,
On the lime plateaux west of the National Park of Cayenne, thousands of Songbirds will be caught in stone crush traps like the one attached to this letter as a result of your approval. In the eyes of animal protection, the legalisation of such a cruel, indiscriminate and practically uncontrollable method of hunting is scandalous and I strongly condemn it. I hereby demand of you to reinstate the ban on this medieval method of bird catching immediately, ensuring the consistent implementation of the EU bird protection directive in France.
Best regards