France Now a Better Place for Birds, as President Forbids Glue Traps to Catch Them In

Forty-one years after all European countries except France banned the use of glue traps for hunting songbirds, President Emmanuel Macron has finally decided to temporarily outlaw the practice for the upcoming hunting season.

“It’s good news for the law and for biodiversity,” says Barbara Pompili, France’s environment minister. Conservationists welcome the government’s “symbolic” move as the anthropologist Christophe Baticle puts it, and hope for a permanent ban on this practice and others like hunting with nets, because “if you catch the wrong animal and you kill them, then it’s a crime.”

A majority of the French population is against hunting, deeming it cruel and outdated. Not only is the glue trap practice cruel to animals which suffer when trapped, but it is also harmful to the environment as the solvents contaminate trees and soil.