Traditional hunting methods ruled illegal in France

France's top administrative court has banned further traditional techniques for hunting birds, following the outlawing of the use of glue in June, in a ruling welcomed by environmental pressure groups.

The techniques banned in the new ruling by the State Council include practices popular in the south-west of France and the Ardennes region of the east of the country, such as hunting with nets or bird cages.

Hunting with nets and cages will be banned in parts of France (LPO / BirdLife France).

Its ruling revokes exemptions granted by the government to allow the hunting of birds such as Northern Lapwing, European Golden Plover, Eurasian Skylark and thrushes, after a 2009 EU directive that banned the mass hunting of birds irrespective of species.

It said in its ruling that the government has not proven that such techniques were necessary and the "idea alone of preserving so-called 'traditional' methods is not enough to authorise them". 

The League for the Protection of Birds (LPO), one of the groups that brought the complaint, said it was time for the government to formally outlaw practices that "come from another age".

"While biodiversity is collapsing and with it bird populations, France had to be pushed into a corner by the threat of an exemplary condemnation by the EU Court of Justice," said its president Allain Bougrain-Dubourg.

The other NGO behind the complaint, One Voice, said that 100,000 birds per year were being killed as a result of the exemptions outlawed in the judgement, not including those birds killed accidentally. "It's an immense victory for birds," it said.

France's National Federation of Hunters however said the ruling was "devoid of the slightest serious basis" and vowed to explore all further legal avenues.