The animal defense association PAZ suspects municipalities, including two in Calvados, Caen and Ouistreham, of using “cruel” depigeonnization methods. Avipur, the company in charge of regulating the birds, denies.
“Caen sponsors capture campaigns, but without specifying how the pigeons are killed: we think they are gassed. Ouistreham sponsors scare campaigns and authorizes its service provider to kill pigeons installed in the contraceptive dovecote”says Paris Animals Zoopolis (PAZ) in a press release published this Friday, January 20, 2023.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6bChD2y1ls
This animal defense association, created in 2017, investigated for a year the methods used by 141 municipalities in France to limit pigeon populations.. Fifty-two municipalities have refused to disclose their bird control methods, Caen is one of those municipalities that did not play the transparency card from the outset. The association then asked the very official Commission for Access to Administrative Documents to obtain these internal documents. The Caen municipality finally sent the supporting documents (quotes, purchase orders and invoices) relating to the “depigeonization” campaigns for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021. But all these documents are “redacted”, i.e. redacted from the main information. Details of the measures put in place, price of the services, names of the signatories, contact details of the town hall employees in charge of the files, etc., are missing, which makes them illegible. One example among others: on a quote drawn up in 2021 by the company Avipur, it is indicated that a “pigeon capture campaign” will last “ten weeks”, but the following twelve lines, listing the recommended operations, are blacked out , which prevents it from being read.
This secrecy organized around the bird regulation contracts therefore arouses the suspicion of the PAZ association. For Amandine Sanvisens, co-founder of the association: “He is not precise what happens after capture. However, de-pigeonization companies kill pigeons by gassing. To our knowledge, there is no other method.” This technique is legal, but “cruel”, according to the association. “The pigeons are crammed into boxes, into which CO2 is injected, explains Amandine Sanvisens. Death is slow and painful, like a feeling of drowning… The birds are then frozen and sent for rendering. But if there is a bad CO2 dosage, they can be frozen half alive“.
We have just changed software, I no longer have access to these documents
Guillaume Winiarz, director of Avipur Lower Normandyinterviewed by France 3
The company Avipur Basse-Normandie, which we contacted, denies having recourse to “gazage”. “Some companies doadmits Guillaume Winiarz, the director, “but not us. We do not have the necessary equipment to perform this type of operation”. Wider, Guillaume Winiarz refutes any euthanasia of pigeons, during the regulatory operations carried out by his company (which has twenty-seven subsidiaries, all over France).
He even claims that no more “captures” have been made since 2020, which is contradicted by the documents provided by the town hall of Caen (an estimate from Avipur dates from January 22, 2021, another from December 13, 2021 and two invoices are dated February 04 and November 18, 2021). Faced with these elements, the manager ends up admitting that: “dCapture operations can be organised, but only occasionally, at the request of the municipalities. And no birds are killed. They are simply released in other departments.”
When asked for the details of these quotes and contracts, redacted by the town hall, he is not able to provide them: “We have just changed software and I no longer have access to these documents”. Contacted since Friday January 20, the town hall of Caen did not respond to our interview requests.
We are opposed to any bird contraception
Jean-Pierre Frodello, President of the Normandy Bird Protection LeagueInterviewed by France 3
The PAZ association also approached the town of Ouistreham. Following the intervention of the CADA, the municipality ended up communicating its contracts relating to the regulation of pigeons (without redacting them).
The first document (dated April 24, 2019) is a maintenance contract for a contraceptive dovecote by the company Avipur of Basse-Normandie (still her). This regulation technique consists of retaining birds at a specific point (by feeding them), in order to control their proliferation. A clause arouses the anger of the association: it indicates that in “in the event of overpopulation, samples will be taken to maintain the good rate of the colony”. For PAZ, this formulation simply means that birds are killed, which Guillaume Winiarz again disputes. According to the director of Avipur Basse-Normandie, only injured or already dead birds are removed from the loft.
As proof of his good faith, he ensures that he scrupulously respects the recommendations of a reference association for the protection of birds (the League for the Protection of Birds, LPO), in the maintenance of dovecotes. When contacted, Jean-Pierre Frodello, president of the LPO of Normandy, said he was very surprised: “We are opposed to any sterilization of pigeons and there is no particular protocol for this species, which is not protected”.
The second document provided by the city of Ouistreham concerning the regulation of its pigeons is an estimate “of raptor scaring”established on March 17, 2021. For the PAZ association, even if this method is legal, it is “cruel, both for pigeons and raptors: pigeons are stressed and can be injured or even killed; and the raptor, a wild animal, is trained and kept in captivity”. Pascal Chrétien, deputy mayor of Ouistreham, puts it into perspective: “I was there when the nozzle was released and I saw how it scared the pigeons away, but it did not hurt any. Anyway, it’s still a natural method.
The objective of the PAZ association is that “The government and parliamentarians prohibit all these methods: capture, gassing, shooting, surgical sterilization, scaring…” Amandine Sanvisens recommends contraceptive lofts, but without “sampling” and a brand new technique, from Spain: contraceptive corn, still little known in France (only Quimper uses it, according to the association). According to the activist, this contraceptive food has proven itself in a spectacular way in Barcelona, in the church of the Sagrada Familia, massively colonized by birds.
Pending legislative decisions, PAZ has decided to raise public awareness through shocking videos, on the model of L214. A film posted on January 13 has already borne fruit. Filmed in Asnières-sur-Seine (92), it shows dying pigeons, trapped in cages. The town hall immediately reacted by condemning these practices of the Sapian company and announcing that it was separating from its service provider.
The association also denounces the fact that 52 municipalities, including Evreux, Cherbourg and Flers, have still not sent the requested documents, despite a favorable opinion from the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents (CADA). To win the case, PAZ seized the administrative court, for all cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants.
In Normandy, two municipalities find favor in the eyes of the association, because they avoid lethal methods against pigeons or do not take any particular action; it’s about Havre and Caudebec-lès-Elbeuf.
