PARIS – “One cannot be committed to the ecological transition and continue to defend a barbaric tradition that destroys biodiversity”. It is a long battle that Alain Bougrain-Dubourg has been fighting for years. The president of the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO) has long been fighting to ban the “glue hunt” with which thrushes and blackbirds are caught alive and then used as bait. France is one of the last European countries to still authorize this hunting practice, already in the sights of the European Union.
In glue hunting, birds are trapped on sticks covered with mistletoe. The small birds thus captured are placed in cages and serve, singing, to attract others for the hunters. The measure is used to catch thrushes and blackbirds but there are many species that end up trapped, even the protected ones. In a new ruling, the European Court of Justice now argues that the mistletoe used causes “irreparable harm” to birds, thus paving the way for its complete ban in France.
Last year Macron had already decided to suspend the “chasse à la glu” for the entire season, in the wake of the protests of the associations. The hunters had appealed to the Council of State which had rejected their request, highlighting doubts about the compatibility with the European directive approved in 2009. Now the European Court of Justice rejects the defense of hunters on attempts to clean up the plumage of birds that ended up in the trap, then free yourself. “The captured birds – the magistrates write – suffer irreparable damage, being the mistletoe by its very nature, suitable for damaging the plumage of all captured birds”.
Originally also popular in Spain, glue hunting is now only allowed in five departments in southeastern France. After the decision of European justice, the last word rests with the Council of State. The Minister of Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompili, has already expressed herself in favor of a total ban. In the government majority, not everyone agrees. “Our country is killing an ancestral tradition” laments Alain Péréa, deputy from La République en Marche elected in Narbonne, where hunting with glue is used. Macron himself has been accused in the past of defending hunters for electoral reasons. Macron, who had celebrated a birthday in the prestigious hunting lodge of Chambord Castle, always appeared lukewarm with respect to the protests of the environmental associations against the chase that is carried out with packs of dogs that chase the prey until they are exhausted. Another controversial hunting practice, the subject of a dispute with the former Minister for Ecological Transition, the popular activist Nicolas Hulot, party in controversy from the government just a year after his appointment.
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