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HUNTING

Chasse à la glu: Why French hunters are taking the streets

French hunters are protesting about a suspension of one of the country's most controversial hunting techniques - la chasse à la glu. Here's why the issue is ruffling feathers.

Chasse à la glu: Why French hunters are taking the streets
President of the French Hunting Federation Willy Schraen holds a banner as he takes part in a demonstration of hunters. Photo: AFP

In recent weeks France has seen several demonstrations from French hunters, protesting about a suspension of the practice know as chasse à la glu (glue trap hunting). 

This hunting technique has been at the heart of disagreements for years, but it has recently come to a head – here's why.

What is chasse à la glu ?

The chasse à la glu or gluau is a hunting technique only practised in certain areas of France, and used from the beginning of October to mid-December.

Sticks coated with glue are put on tree branches in order to trap songbirds, which will then be unglued and caged in order to serve as lures for other birds (which will be shot by hunters).

These lures are called the appellants (callers) and are set free from their cages after the season ends. They are mostly thrushes and blackbirds.

Photo: AFP

The chasse à la glu is still authorised in five southern French départements (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Alpes-Maritimes, Bouches-du-Rhône, Var and Vaucluse).

READ ALSO: Opinion: 'Hunting in France is outdated and must be banned'

What’s happening this year?

Though it has been the subject of controversy for years, every year the government gives hunters a quota for “traditional” hunting methods such as chasse à la glu and net hunting.

But this year, there will be no glue trap hunting quota. 

“Following an urgent appeal from the National Federation of Hunters, the Council of State rejected, on September 22nd, 2020, this request to reverse the government decision and to set the quotas authorized by decree,” writes the Direction de l’information légale et administrative on the Service Public website.

Why so much controversy around the chasse à la glu?

In 2009 the European Birds Directive forbade the chasse à la glu in all EU countries, but France managed to get a dispensation to still practice it in certain areas.

The directive prohibits “methods of mass or non-selective capture or killing” of birds, in particular hunting with glue, but provides for exemptions when “there is no other satisfactory method”.

Many wildlife and animal welfare groups have denounced the hunting technique as cruel and traumatising for the appellants, which, when set free, suffer from “musculoskeletal system and feather damage” as well as toxicity from the glue and the solvent, according to a report by the National Centre for Veterinary Toxicological Information, relayed by France Info.

The chasse a la glu is also singled out by the French Bird Protection League (BPL) for threatening the lives of endangered species, which might get glued by mistake.

In early 2019 the BPL had declared they had filled a complaint against France to the European Commission after the Council of State rejected their request to refuse France's glue trap hunting exception.

Last July, the European Union’s executive body also threatened France with legal action if the glue traps were not banned within three months.

It was against this background that president Emmanuel Macron decided in August to suspend chasse à la glu in France.

READ ALSO: France's hunting season claims eight lives – and it's only half way through

What do the hunters say?

But for hunters, who had already denounced the BPL for their “unfounded smear campaigns”, the presidential decision is just “unacceptable”, head of the hunters’ federation Willy Schraen told BFMTV.

 

In an interview for hunting website Chassons.com, Head of the Association for the Defence of Traditional Thrush Hunts Eric Camoin said a quota of 22,000 birds to be caught by this method was agreed with PM Jean Castex back in August, before being overturned by Macron.

“We were taken for idiots. The rulers certainly said to themselves, with the economic situation, why bother with 5,000 practitioners,” he said.  

Photo: AFP

But a demonstration in the southern French town of Prades (where Jean Castex was mayor before being appointed PM) was not just attended by hunters.

As reports Midi-Libre, wine-growers came to support the marching hunters, saying they had to defend the French rurality which, according to them, is being threatened by the many attacks targeted at hunters.

This is an ongoing complaint in France, where many people who live and work in rural areas feel that their concerns are frequently ignored by the Paris-based government.

So while many people have applauded Macron’s decision – including Environment Minister Barbara Pompili who welcomed the suspension as “a good news for the law and for biodiversity”- he is still facing angry calls to reverse the ban.

 

 

By Gwendoline Gaudicheau

Member comments

  1. Braindead children that call themselves hunters. Try shooting grouse in flight not some poor bird stuck on a stick like something out of a fairground attraction. Pathetic.

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DRIVING

‘Città 30’: Which Italian cities will bring in new speed limits?

Bologna has faced heavy criticism - including from the Italian government - after introducing a speed limit of 30km/h, but it's not the only city to approve these rules.

'Città 30': Which Italian cities will bring in new speed limits?

Bologna on January 17th became Italy’s first major city to introduce a speed limit of 30km/h on 70 percent of roads in the city centre under its ‘Città 30’ plan, first announced in 2022, and initially set to come into force by June 2023.

The move made Bologna one of a growing number of European cities, including Paris, Madrid, Brussels, and Bilbao, to bring in a 30km/h limit aimed at improving air quality and road safety.

But the change was met last week with a go-slow protest by Bologna’s taxi drivers and, perhaps more surprisingly, criticism from the Italian transport ministry, which financed the measure.

Matteo Salvini, who is currently serving as Italy’s transport minister, this week pledged to bring in new nationwide rules dictating speed limits in cities that would reverse Bologna’s new rule.

Salvini’s League party has long criticised Bologna’s ‘Città 30’ plan, claiming it would make life harder for residents as well as people working in the city and would create “more traffic and fines”.

OPINION: Italians and their cars are inseparable – will this ever change?

Bologna’s speed limit has sparked a heated debate across Italy, despite the increasingly widespread adoption of such measures in many other cities in Europe and worldwide in recent years.

While Bologna is the biggest Italian city to bring in the measure, it’s not the first – and many more local authorities, including in Rome, are now looking to follow their example in the next few years.

Some 60 smaller cities and towns in Italy have adopted the measure so far, according to Sky TG24, though there is no complete list.

This compares to around 200 French towns and cities to adopt the rule, while in Spain the same limit has applied to 70 percent of all the country’s roads since since May 2021 under nationwide rules, reports LA7.

The first Italian town to experiment with a 30 km/h speed limit was Cesena, south of Bologna, which introduced it in 1998. Since then, the local authority has found that serious accidents have halved, while the number of non-serious ones has remained unchanged.

Olbia, in Sardinia, also famously introduced the speed limit in 2021.

The city of Parma is planning to bring in the same rules from 2024, while the Tuscan capital of Florence approved five 30km/h zones in the city centre earlier this month.

Turin is set to bring in its first 30km/h limits this year as part of its broader plan to improve transport infrastructure, aimed at reducing smog and increasing livability.

READ ALSO: Why electric cars aren’t more popular in Italy

Meanwhile, the mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, has promised to introduce the limit on 70 percent of the capital’s roads by the end of his mandate, which expires in 2026.

In Milan, while the city council has voted in favour of lower speed limits and other traffic limitations on central roads, it’s not clear when these could come into force.

Milan mayor Beppe Sala this week said a 30 km/h limit would be “impossible” to implement in the Lombardy capital.

And it’s notable that almost all of the cities looking at slowing down traffic are in the north or centre-north of Italy.

There has been little interest reported in the measures further south, where statistics have shown there are a higher number of serious road accidents – though the total number of accidents is in fact higher in the north.

According to the World Health Organisation the risk of death to a pedestrian hit by a car driven at 50 km/h is 80 percent. The risk drops to 10 percent at 30 km/h.

The speed limit on roads in Italian towns and cities is generally 50, and on the autostrade (motorways) it’s up to 130.

Many Italian residents are heavily dependent on cars as their primary mode of transport: Italy has the second-highest rate of car ownership in Europe, with 670 vehicles per 1,000 residents, second only to Luxembourg with 682, according to statistics agency Eurostat.

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