'Catastrophe' as France's bird population collapses due to pesticides and glue trapping. Bird populations across the French countryside have fallen by a third over the last decade and a half, researchers have said.
Despite this bird hunters in France have been given permission to continue using the traditional method of "glue trap hunting", after the French Conseil d'Etat rejected a demand for its ban.
Glue trap hunting ("la chasse à la glu") is a technique that allows hunters to trap birds as they land on tree branches covered with glue. It is not intended to kill the birds, but to enable them to be gathered, cleaned with solvents, and sold as pets to live in a birdcage or aviary. These birds belong in the wild not in cages!
It is thought that they are also put in small cages in the countryside by hunters to lure more wild birds to the area for their "sport".
Hunters usually aim to collect thrushes and blackbirds and consider that this method should continue because it is a French tradition to trap songbirds!
This is what they have to say, "The birds are caught, cleaned, and go on to live a very long time in an aviary. If we want singing birds, [the technique] must be maintained. These lies and jokes [by the LPO] must stop now."
A cage is not where we want to see blackbirds and thrushes; there is no joy for our beautiful songbirds away from the open skies, freedom and their natural diet. They will not definitely not be breeding in captivity. Why must we lose our songbirds from the countryside?
The French supreme court rejected the demand from bird protection group la Ligue de Protection des Oiseaux (LPO) that the technique be banned.
The Supreme Court said that fixed and seasonal quotas for bird hunting should be maintained instead, with hunters not permitted to exceed that level. This is not good enough.
LPO said that, "We have found blue tits, warblers, and recently a kestrel - all stuck. Clearly, this practice is not selective. We cannot just do anything we like, under the pretext of 'tradition'.
Biodiversity is in freefall: there are 30% fewer birds in our fields in France.
Please sign this petition and share it with your friends in support of LPO's demand to ban glue trapping.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-44167690/songbirds-disappearing-from-france
