EU magistrate OKs hunting birds with glue in France
Today [20 November 2020] an EU magistrate handed a victory to French bird trappers ruling that the practice of using ‘glue sticks’ to trap wild birds is acceptable on the grounds of being of ‘cultural significance’
Using glue sticks to catch birds has been outlawed in Europe since the passing of the 1979 Birds Directive, but since 1989 France has used a derogation which allows trapping in ‘specific circumstances’ where the practice is “controlled, selective and in limited quantities”.
Lime sticks or glue traps are short sticks covered in a sticky substance (traditionally made from boiling up the fruit of the Syrian plum-tree, holly bark or mistletoe). They are placed in bushes or sites where birds are known to roost and birds are often flushed towards the sticks or lured there by tapes playing bird calls.
French conservation groups led by the Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux (LPO) have been trying to bring an end to the cruel and indiscriminate practice for many years. LPO estimates that some 40,000 birds are caught by 5,000 trappers using glue sticks each year.
Earlier this year it looked like they were set to win their battle when President Macron announced a one-year suspension to glue trapping pending a resolution to legal challenges. However the latest ruling by the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice issued a legal opinion approving French laws that permit the limited use of glue traps in Southern France.
Advocates general to the Luxembourg-based court, Europe’s highest legal body, offer legal opinions that serve as nonbinding guidance for the court’s judges. Their opinions often, but not always, indicate how the court will ultimately rule.
Advocate General Juliane Kokott found that France’s bird-protection laws are compatible with the EU Birds Directive because glue traps are a “regionally widespread traditional hunting method for recreational purposes” and of “significant cultural importance.”
In her ruling she noted “Permission to hunt using limes in the regions concerned is indubitably appropriate and necessary to enable that hunting method to be preserved,” she wrote. “The preservation of a traditional hunting method for recreational purposes may be recognized as a judicious use of the bird species concerned.”
20 Nov 2020
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