bird that is illegal to eat in france
Ortolan bunting Ortolan hunting was banned in France in 1999, but the law was poorly enforced and it is thought that up to 50,000 ortolans were killed each year during the autumn migration: mostly birds from breeding grounds in Finland and the Baltic area. According to France’s League for the Protection of Birds, France's ortolan population fell 30% between 1997 and 2007.[14] In 2007, the French government vowed to strictly enforce some existing rules about banning the practice, with the maximum fine set at €6,000 (£4,800, $6,728). Killing and cooking ortolans is banned across the EU. In 2007, the pressure from France's League for Protection of Birds and from the European Union resulted in the French government promising to enforce the EU directive protecting the ortolan.[15] After several years of active citizen watch revealing little if any change in the field situation,[16][17][18] the local representative of the government repeated this statement in 2016.[19]