Yes, respect for nature is ALSO a form of civilisation…
Here too, the trade in small birds is part of their culture, the birds that, fortunately for us, live with us. Songbirds are among the first victims of the illegal trade in France. A goldfinch can be traded on the black market for 300 euros each. If it is a good songbird, it can cost several thousand euros.
A smuggler who had repeatedly committed offences, who was granted the right to remain in France and wanted to sell this bird, which is protected by OUR law, at the Flea Market in Marseille, was caught. He wanted to sell goldfinches at the flea market in Marseille: Man sentenced to one year’s probation.
He wanted to sell goldfinches at the flea market in Marseille: A man is sentenced to one year's probation.
‘An Algerian man was sentenced to one year's probation in Marseille on Tuesday for trafficking goldfinches, a protected bird species. The accused had already been arrested in November 2024 in possession of 53 birds, which were sold for between 150 and 300 euros.
The accused, who was subject to an obligation to leave the country, had been arrested on Sunday at the flea market in Marseille in possession of 41 goldfinches in cages hidden in large shopping bags. The confiscated birds were handed over by the French Biodiversity Agency to a specialist who was able to look after them. The specialist released them on Monday, but two birds were already dead.
The city police had already apprehended the man on the 17th of November 2024 in possession of 53 birds, which, as he explained at the time, he had offered for sale for 150 to 300 euros. He was released at the time.The man denied having traded in birds on Sunday and asserted that he did not comprehend his arrest. In court, he explained that he had only been at the flea market to have a coffee.
The League for the Protection of Birds (LPO), which appeared as a co-plaintiff and was awarded 10,000 euros in damages, expressed its concern in court about the number of birds on sale on Sunday, whereas the police usually confiscate less than a dozen goldfinches.
Céline Bronzani, defence lawyer for the LPO, spoke of an ‘important protection issue’ and recalled that the population of goldfinches in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (Paca) region had declined by 52% in a decade between 2001 and 2012.This plague also exists in the form of nets that stretch for kilometres in the Maghreb and Egypt, destroying small passerines caught in their flight. Depending on the species, they are either caught for their song or for consumption. I outlined this in an article almost exactly a year ago, and of course our political escrologists are silent on this aspect of the decline of our passerines (they are the same ones that fly in and out of the Mediterranean):
If you can do nothing else, report every goldfinch in a cage … and give the ones that are free sunflower seeds, whole or shelled.