Christian Vincenot, coordinator of the IBRG, gave an interview to journalist Vincent Bordenave regarding the 3rd cull of the endangered Mauritian flying fox Pteropus niger and the ongoing court case. The resulting article was featured in the Premium section of Le Figaro, France's highly regarded newspaper.
The government of Mauritius had previously culled on two occasions the population of P. niger, thereby halving its size. The third cull further consisted in the shooting of 13000 bats (out of the ~50000 left) and was carried in a secretive manner, with no communication on the method, locations, or precise dates of the operations.
Two days before the start of this third cull, in a Science letter, F.B. Vincent Florens (University of Mauritius) and Christian had called in such challenging cases for stronger measures by the conservation community, among which the resort to legal actions. This call was followed by the NGO Droits Humains Ocean Indien under the leadership of Fabiola Monty and with the technical support of several scientific entities, among which the IBRG. The NGO sued the government of Mauritius in the Supreme Court in December 2018 and the case is still being processed.
This very first coverage of this 3rd cull by a major international media outlet generated local rebounds in Mauritian press (see below).
