Emmanuel Macron has decided to suspend glue hunting for thrushes and blackbirds this year, the Elysee announced on Thursday, pending a response from the Court of Justice of the European Union on this hunting method controversial. The Head of State made this decision Wednesday, after having received the president of the National Federation of Hunters Willy Schraen, in the presence of the Minister of Ecological Transition Barbara Pompili, specified the presidency. On the other hand, "the quotas of other traditional hunts are maintained at their level of last year," added the Elysee.
A practice criticized by the European Commission
On July 2, the European Commission had once again called on France to put an end to "illegal hunting and to re-examine its methods of capturing birds", pointing out in particular the hunting of glue, for thrushes, and with nets, for larks. At the end of 2019, the Council of State had referred the matter to the Court of Justice of the European Union to clarify whether the "Birds" directive allows the capture of certain species of wild birds with glue, without having obtained answer for now.
By deciding to set at zero for this hunting season the glue hunting quota for thrushes and blackbirds, against 42,000 last season, Emmanuel Macron is responding to both the demands of environmentalists and the European Commission. A position supported by Barbara Pompili who, by receiving hunters shortly after her appointment in mid-July, had repeated to them, according to the Federation, wanting to ban this practice of trapping birds with glue. The small birds thus captured and caged serve, by singing, to attract others for the hunters.
France, the last country in Europe to allow it
These non-selective hunting methods, prohibited by a 2009 directive on the protection of birds except for exceptions, have long been denounced by bird protection associations and environmentalists. France is the last country in Europe to authorize it in five departments in the south-east (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Alpes-Maritimes, Bouches-du-Rhône, Var and Vaucluse).
Worried about the minister's position and a possible ban, the hunters were received at Matignon on August 7 and announced a demonstration on August 8 near Fort de Brégançon - where Emmanuel Macron spent his holidays - but finally had it canceled.
The national secretary of EELV Julien Bayou had criticized the government of Jean Castex at the beginning of August, which, according to him, "procrastinates on the end of the cruel hunt for glue".