Trafficking of protected bird species in the Southwest, trial postponed until January 2026

This 92-year-old man, presented by the prosecution as a key player in this case, which notably concerns the capture, detention and illegal sale by an organized gang of several thousand wild birds over several years, has "severely impaired cognitive and memory capacities," argued his lawyer, Christophe Bernabeu, requesting that his capacity to appear be medically assessed.

The court granted the request and sent the entire case back.

"Let the case die"

In this case, "we have a lot of people who are very old [...] the more time passes, the more defendants we will lose and the criminal response will not be able to be there, so it is very disappointing", regretted Hervé Hourcade, lawyer for the France Nature Environnement association, a civil party in this case where two people prosecuted have already died.

For the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO), also a civil party, the adjournment is certainly justified "in view of the rights of the defense," said their lawyer, Sandrine Gélis, but "the defense strategy is to let the case die, and to let the case die, the defendants must die."

On the defense side, several lawyers contested the charges against their clients before the referral decision, and in particular that the alleged acts were committed by an organized gang, a qualification retained by the prosecution.

Traffic disputed by the Pyrenees animal park

"The trafficking of protected species is contested by the Pyrenees Animal Park, which we will demonstrate at the next hearing," stated Julien Marco, the lawyer for the Pyrenees-Atlantiques zoological park implicated in the proceedings.

"We are suffering the postponement of this case because the media coverage is detrimental to the park, and we are being portrayed as being involved in large-scale trafficking, which is absolutely not the case," he lamented.

According to the prosecution, the defendants participated in "a European bird trade (goldfinches, nightingales, linnets, robins, hoopoes, cedar waxwings, etc.), species protected throughout the country, allowing some to indulge their passion for ornithology and others to generate hidden income," Cahors public prosecutor Clara Ribeiro explained in a press release on Wednesday.

These birds were sought after for their beauty, their plumage or their song.

The alleged facts span "from September 2012 to March 2018, in the departments of Lot, Hautes-Pyrénées, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Ariège, Tarn, Gers, Lot-et-Garonne and Landes," the prosecutor specified.

This case, which was the subject of a judicial investigation opened on September 23, 2016, was marked by "the multitude of protagonists, their different involvements, a European dimension (one of the defendants owned a bird shop in Belgium where the animals were resold, editor's note), the number and technical complexity of the incriminations," she also emphasized.

Ten people involved in this case have already been tried in a preliminary admission of guilt procedure (CRPC), according to the Cahors prosecutor's office, which did not specify the sentences handed down.

In February 2017, after about two years of investigation by the National Office for Hunting and Wildlife (ONCFS, merged in 2020 with the French Agency for Biodiversity to become the OFB, French Office for Biodiversity), law enforcement carried out a wave of arrests in around thirty locations, and seized around 430 birds kept in aviaries, more than 140 traps and cash.