PARIS — The hunting technique involves coating branches with glue to trap songbirds, which are caged to attract additional birds that can then be killed. Activists have condemned it as cruel to the animals and harmful to the environment, and such practices have been banned in all European Union countries except France, which created a workaround to allow hunters to continue its use. This week, France said that it, too, was temporarily banning the practice — a move that follows mounting pressure from conservationists, a complaint to the European Court of Justice, and a threat from the European Union’s executive body in July that the country faced legal action if the glue traps were not banned within three months. Christophe Baticle, an anthropologist at the University of Picardy Jules Verne in northern France, described the move as “symbolic.” And the country’s environment minister, Barbara Pompili, called it “good news for the law and for biodiversity.”

Source: New York Times August 28, 2020 15:00 UTC