Suspended prison sentences and fines of up to 18,000 euros as well as the confiscation of the boats were demanded against three companies which offered to swim with dolphins on the Côte d'Azur, a prohibited activity.
For 300 euros per person for a day, the companies based in Mandelieu-la-Napoule and Antibes (Alpes-Maritimes), offered to jump into the water, in the open sea, with mask and snorkel, in the middle of the banks of dolphins previously spotted using a microlight.
However, since a ministerial decree of 2021 it is forbidden in France to approach within 100 meters of a dolphin and even more to swim with the animal.
The three professionals, who risked up to two years in prison and a fine of 300,000 euros, are being prosecuted for “
misleading commercial practice
” and “
willful disturbance of a protected non-domesticated animal species
”.
Read alsoIn Kenya, drought decimates elephants, buffaloes and zebras in national parks
A risk for the feeding and reproduction of dolphins
“
It is not the boats that come to the dolphins, but the dolphins that have always come to meet the boats
”: such was the defense of an owner of one of the companies prosecuted, Martial Fremont, repeated by his colleagues. , Wednesday evening at the bar of the Grasse Criminal Court.
“
I find it very difficult to hear that, when we know that these companies use a plane to spot the dolphins
”, retorted Isabelle Vergnoux, lawyer for France Nature Environnement (FNE), at the origin of the complaint.
"
These practices can cause the animal's feeding and reproduction to be interrupted, or even the break-up of the group and the separation of newborns from their mothers.
“, already denounced in 2019 the association in a press release.
Xavier Nogueras, the lawyer for the three defendants, who believes that his clients were "
massacred
", in particular because of the seizure of their boat depriving them of any income, pleaded ambiguity in the orders.
The public prosecutor, according to whom the operators were "
informed
" of the ban but "
passed in force
" called for three-month suspended prison sentences, fines of 5,000 to 18,000 euros and the confiscation of the boats .
Judgment is due on January 26, 2023.
