Document type: article published in 20 minutes
Author: Elsa Provenzano
Preview: Every year, between 400 and 500 breeders produce between 10 and 20 million game animals in France. These figures make France the top game producer in Europe. The Nos Viventia (We the Living) association has just made public a year-long investigation into the partridge and pheasant farming industry, intended to draw attention to the little-known practices involved. According to Nos Viventia, the birds raised are destined to become "cannon fodder" for shoots whose available sport has been declining alongside Adaptation of the animal to the environment since the 1970s. In the words of representatives of the hunting industry, the association presents a "distortion of reality", suggesting that the industry's operations are "virtuous" and "controlled". The wild animals the industry raises in captivity are released on a massive scale into the wild on weekends between September and November, right across France.
"Lack of care" on pheasant farms?
The association has filed a complaint with the Agen and Nantes public prosecutors' offices, claiming "lack of care" at two production sites concerning which it has been able to gather concrete evidence, with the help of whistle-blowers based in the Loire-Atlantique and Lot-et-Garonne. "It has also launched an online petition that attracted over 4,000 signatures, with the ultimate aim of banning the raising of animals as game. We didn't target any specific companies; we filmed there because we had the chance to," explains Pierre Rigaux, ecologist and founder of Nos Viventia. But we know that all these companies follow the same procedures." In response, Jean-Christophe Chastang, President of InterProchasse, retorts that he is "not troubled by the rantings of a pseudo-naturalist." He asserts that game breeders, who are licensed, treat their animals when they are sick, and use a state-appointed veterinary inspector. He says that he suspects the association of wanting to discredit "nature and animal lovers".
Birds that respond badly to captivity
The Nos Viventia images show birds crammed into pens, some with injuries and visibly hostile to one another. "They find captivity harder than chickens, for example. They're very territorial and still have their wild character that makes them attack each other frequently", points out Pierre Rigaux. Once they have grown to a certain size and the weakest among them have already been culled, the farmers ring partridges and use beak covers on pheasants to reduce deaths. "Without the beak covers, they'd kill each other," says Pierre Rigaux. "Pheasants are a little more aggressive than partridges, but breeders don't systematically fit them with beak covers," comments the head of the inter-professional group. In the wild, these animals live in small social groups, whereas in captivity, according to the association, they come into contact with thousands of fellow-birds of the same age. The animals are kept in huge 200-meter-long pens mimicking their habitat in the wild," hits back Jean-Christophe Chastang. The density of the animals is extremely low, and they are raised in the open air - this is not intensive farming."
Profitability at the expense of animal welfare?
But according to the association, these farms must necessarily be intensive if they are to be profitable. "Losses are built into their model. If they were aiming for zero aggression, they'd only need a few birds per pen, and that wouldn't work," says Pierre Rigaux. The farmers never treat them all, because otherwise it wouldn't be profitable. It can't work any other way." These claims are denied by the profession, which claims in turn that there is no excess mortality on its farms.
The practice of raising animals as game is controversial within the hunting community itself. Some consider that it is not "real hunting". And when you see animals wandering and a little lost after being unloaded into the natural environment, you might consider that not much "fair play" is involved in such releases. According to the association's estimates, only two out of every ten birds released may actually be hunted, while very few survive in the wild. Even more worryingly, recent studies have shown that an ecosystem will suffer when large numbers of birds appear in a small area, because, for example, they they have a negative impact on already fragile populations such as lizards and snakes. And when birds bred in captivity interbreed with wild birds, they contribute to a genetic weakening of their breed. "They produce young that are less able to resist disease or digest their food, etc.", asserts the ecologist.
