Slaughter of the songbirds: the fight against France's 'barbaric' glue traps

This article speaks for itself,
I do find there is a lack of birds in the countryside, I put it down to the chasse shooting anything that moved.

This is horrific, ā€˜tradition’ justifies their exemption from EU rules, so that’s alright then NOT!!!

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This is barbaric. I know this and other actions are carried out in Spain under the same ā€œtraditionā€ blanket.

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Absolutely horrible…:cry:

About a month ago I started feeding the wild birds…I’ve now got over a dozen blue tits and a dozen great tits and two green finch and two robins…a multitude of tree sparrows and chaffinch and a mistle thrush and a song thrush…(plus a female pheasant and a green woodpecker)

They are all there from sunrise til sundown…saw my first goldfinch about a week ago…:slightly_smiling_face:

I’ve also got a couple of starlings visit…I thought they were starling shaped but because they were brown I wasn’t sure so I did a bit of research and discovered they are juveniles and was surprised to learn that starlings are now also on the rspb red list…

Last year a tiny brown bird flew into my house and got stuck on a flypaper…I was horrified and it took me half an hour to gently free it…sweat was dripping from my brow in case I injured it…tiny little legs and feet and wings and weighing next to nothing it was painstaking work and eventually I was able to take it outside and let it go minus a couple of feathers still on the fly strip…

I can’t think of one good reason why glue trapping should be enabled to continue…:frowning:

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Like you Helen, I have rescued birds, sometimes after they have flown into the window and are stunned. Taking care to transport these precious little visitors to a safe spot in the garden until they compose themselves. I cannot imagine not having the joy of feeding these garden guests and then watching them feast on their chosen morsels. I consider it an honour they visit my garden and the thoughts of any of them suffering in such a way on these glue traps is abhorrent.

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They are an absolute joy aren’t they Dawn…cascading like falling leaves onto the branches onto the feeders onto the ground…I’ve watched which species like which food and how they like to feed and arranged the morsels that I put out so it’s easy for them…the chaffinch have found out how to hop onto the branch closest to a hulled sunflower seed feeder and now I often see them helping themselves from the feeder although I still sprinkle sunflower seeds and mixed seed twice a day on the ground…they’re all so sweet and comical and acrobatic…:heart:

If I’m a little late I have blue tits hanging onto the frame of my back door looking me directly in the eye…

Yes I’ve rescued a fair few from my conservatory…stunning their selves against the glass…it’s a horrible sound but I think they are starting to trust me to wrap them up in a microfibre cloth and take them outside…I’ve had no fatalities for a while now…

I don’t think I have previously realised how much they struggle in winter to find food…many spend the limited daylight hours filling up to survive the night…I hope my efforts are giving them a boost and a safe haven…

I doubt very much that species that have to be released from glue traps ever recover…and the ā€œcaller birdsā€ must suffer dreadfully too…the whole ā€œtraditionā€ is abhorrent…:frowning:

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Helen,

Would you post some photos of your bird feeders, perhaps?

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I’ll give It a go Mary but I’m not sure how clear the photos will be…I only have a creaky old iPhone…

Here’s a bluetit in one of my improvised feeders…I put hulled and entire sunflower seeds in it plus dried mealworms…the tube feeder hanging on a branch just above has hulled sunflower seeds in it…it takes maybe 3 yoghurt pots to fill it up and they can empty it within 2 days…:slightly_smiling_face: image

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Peanuts…:slightly_smiling_face:

Constantly visited in limited daylight hours too by bluetits and great tits…

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Can’t post 3 consecutive replies so edited to add this pic of my female pheasant who you might just be able to make out in this photo…???

image

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Here’s my green woodpecker…a daily visitor but I think he or she visits mostly for ants…drilling holes in favourite spots and I think their territory is quite vast…I’m thinking I must have a lot of ants nests on my driveway…,:grinning:

image|375x500

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It’s lovely to see the birds in your garden, I have friends who feed the blue tits everyday and it’s nice to see.
I rarely see birds in my garden, I think too close to the crops that are sprayed and the chasse.
I’m always amazed that there is more in my mothers garden in the Uk than here.

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I’m happy to say we get all the above birds in our garden. Last year OH counted 50 bluetits in and around the fatballs - not so many this year, probably because it’s not so cold. We also have a colony of red (actually black) squirrels across the road who have ā€œharvestedā€ all the nuts from our three walnut trees. We put out peanuts for them and they disappear quickly enough.

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Just to update about legislation against ā€˜traditional’ traps for birds: I read an article in TheLocal.fr, about legislation banning other kinds of traditional bird traps, as well. Not sure if folks can access so here’s just an excerpt from the article, dated 07/08/2021:

Summary: ā€˜France’s top administrative court on Friday banned more traditional techniques for hunting birds following the banning of glue hunting in June, in a ruling welcomed by environmental pressure groups but denounced by hunters’.

Excerpt:
"The techniques banned in the new ruling by the State Council included practices popular in the southwest of France and the Ardennes region of the east of the country, such as hunting with nets or bird cages.

Its ruling revoked exemptions granted by the government to allow the hunting of birds such as lapwings, golden plovers, skylarks, thrushes and blackbirds after a 2009 EU directive that banned the mass hunting of birds irrespective of species.

It said in its ruling that the government had not proven that such techniques were necessary and the ā€˜idea alone of preserving so-called ā€˜traditional’ methods is not enough to authorise them’.

The State Council’s previous ruling in June came after the EU Court of Justice said in March that using glue traps caused ā€œirreparable harmā€ to the thrushes and blackbirds that are caught."