Banned for a generation Stone-crush Trapping re-opens in France.

Cause almost for guarded optimism - perhaps out here in 'the developing world' i.e. Tanzania.

Surely this is a spectacularly backward step, taken by a major player within the community of nations, which assumes immense international stature and a relatively advanced stage of societal development?

Based on email messages from David Conlin at Proact campaigns in Berlin.

Obtaining Birds using Stone-Crush traps

Last year, after a pause of several decades, the French Minister for Ecology and Sustainable Development, Mme Nelly Olin, once again permitted the use of the most brutal and archaic of all the hunting methods available to Europe’s bird hunters, the stone crush trap.

A stone slab weighing several kilos is propped up with small slivers of wood and juniper berries are scattered around it. If a bird brushes against one of the sticks the slab falls and crushes the bird.

The Committee against Bird Slaughter (CABS) has submitted an environmental protest to the EU but it looks as though more than 75,000 of these – literally ‘stone age’ traps will be set out in the French Massif Central this November. A protest action is now being organised by CABS which Proact is supporting in parallel.

"Squashed thrushes are considered a delicacy in Villeneuve-les-Avignon, France.

This November week-end the hunting of song birds using stone-crush traps begins again in the

Massif Central region of France.

The traps consist of limestone slabs weighing several kilograms, propped up

on twigs and baited with berries. Birds trying to reach the berries brush

against the twigs and are squashed by the falling slab. The victims of this

literally Stone Age hunting method are above all song thrushes and chaffinches,

but other species such as Meadow Pipits, Skylarks and the Blue

Rock-thrush are killed in these traps. CABS estimates that up to 120,000

stone crush traps are set up in the Lozère and Aveyron Départements,

resulting in the non-selective killing of countless birds.

“Most birds are not killed at once. Many lie in the traps for hours with

dreadful crush injuries and broken bones” says Alex Hirschfeld, a CABD

biologist who has monitored and documented this form of hunting in France.

Up until now, the use of this non-selective form of trap (in French

“tendelle”) was banned throughout Europe to protect species listed under the

EU bird protect guidelines. Mme Nelly Olin, the French Environment

Minister, has permitted the use of these traps for “this brutal and egoistic

hobby” again in France - “totally unnecessarily” according to Hirschfeld.

The Minister bases her decision on the development of a new model of the

trap, with which allegedly only huntable species are caught. “A load of

rubbish” according to CABS. Random checks in the neighbourhood of the towns

of Millau and Florac also discovered numerous protected bird species in the

tendelles. In order to combat this form of hunting conservationists have now

appealed to the European Commission and have started a Europe-wide protest

campaign. In order to expose the cruelty of the trapping method to a wider

public, representatives of the media will be invited to press conferences in

the trapping regions in December and January.

You can protest here -

http://www.proact-campaigns.net/localcampaigns/stone_traps.html
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and of course please encourage others to do so!