“I like my work, I am 52 years old and today I am afraid of not being able to continue with my farm.” A Mayennais dairy farmer has launched an online awards group to help him keep his farm. Frédéric Gouallier explains that he has lost more than 50 hectares of corn plots, “a loss of more than 45,000 euros.”
“Due to this lack of corn, I could not produce the amount of milk for dairy. Results of it a great financial loss, and I could not pay all my invoices on time,” he wrote.
The managers pointed out: the Choucas de las Torres, these birds of the corvid family, similar to the corners, and recognizable by their hooded black head with gray, their eyes with white iris and their cries of acute. But they can also be the ruin of farmers, especially in the northwest of France.
Significant corn damage
Choucas de Tours causes “damage to crops that can be significant,” Florian Barbotin, agriculture project manager in LPO Brittany, explains “70-80% in corn”, but also in other cereals or some vegetables, such as cabbage or chalotes.
This damage is observed in particular in silage silos and seedlings and first seeds, in autumn for cereals such as barley or wheat, and essentially in spring in corn crops, it details Romain Devaux, director of the Mayenne Union of FDSEA.
In 2024, in the Côtes-D’armor, the Choucas de las Torres destroyed “more than 310 hectares of wheat, barley and corn areas,” reports the Chamber of Agriculture cited by Ousest-France. This damage would represent almost a million euros in losses.
A protected species, however, killed
Choucas Tours are a protected species, both European and nationally, “as a large majority of birds,” Florian’s barbotine specifies. In fact, this species is decreasing. On the other hand, on the contrary, in Brittany and more widely in the northwest of France, it has been growing since the late 1970s. According to an evaluation, there are almost 45,000 choucas couples on tours in Finistère.
However, thousands of Tours Choucas are killed every year. A first exemption was granted in 2007 in Finistère to tear down a certain number for approved hunters. “Since then, there is every year and in more and more neighboring departments,” explains Florian Barbotin, who quotes in particular the year 2021 when 16,000 Choucas were “taken” in Finistère.
A situation that is far from being adequate for many environmental and animal defense associations. Therefore, on June 30, 2025, Justice suspended three prefectural orders authorizing the 14,500 Choucas de las Torres shooting, Côtes-D’Armor and Morbihan.
She considered that alternative solutions have not been explored enough, as required by the environment code. In addition, associations defend the idea that the massacre of thousands of Choucas has never solved the problem of farmers.
Towards a multiplication of defeats?
But many of them do not agree. In Mayenne, the FDSEA also begs an exemption to regulate the species in the department. Romain Devaux is based in particular on the example of crows or horn, which are “species that probably cause damage (esod)” and, therefore, that can be killed according to fees, during supervised operations, usually through capture systems.
He assures it: the samples of horn and crows bear fruit. “Farmers see less damage,” he said.
To motivate this request before the judge, the agricultural world and other Mayenne associations currently carry out a census of the populations of Choucas des turos in the department.
What alternatives?
But then, what alternatives to protect crops without going through the killing of these birds? “As it is a threatened species, we can only make it curly,” recalls Romain Devaux.
The scarecrows or the kite in the form of rapaz are used to try to keep them away. It is also possible for a sound effusion to use “tonnfort”, these tools that emit regular detonations to scare animals. “The problem is that it leads to disturbances for residents and, in addition, birds end up getting used,” says Romain Devaux.
Another alternative: seed coating with tastes, pepper, for example, thus playing a paper repellent role. According to Romain Devaux, however, this method does not work every time, especially when corn grows and birds can attack the stems.
“We have very few alternative means, hence the need for more scientific data on the species to be able to request displacements to catch or draw the Choucas,” he adds.
The FDSEA also requests a “technical support” with the development of new tools, such as a better funeral of seeds or other tools to train more effective seeds.
Adapt the agricultural landscape
“We arrived 15 years late: we should have invested more in investigation in 2007 and the first defeats,” deplores Lpo Brittany by The Voice of Florian Barbotin.
Instead of increasing the shots against the Choucas de las Torres, the Brittany LPO considers that it would be necessary to limit access to their food and block nesting places, obstructing chimneys, for example.
In fact, studies on the behavior of the Choucas de las Torres are carried out, in particular to understand their presence and growth, in certain French departments. “We are in a logic of co-construction with the agricultural sector given the failure of the State: we need to work with farmers on the subject,” says Florian Barbotin.
Thus they demonstrated that these birds found in these regions “an accumulation of food and nesting opportunities and places to hide,” explains Romain Devaux, of FDSEA. The Choucas move little. But in Brittany and in neighboring departments, many corn crops close to scattered homes allow them to have food nesting places.
Another problem: “They have access to a food resource throughout the year in Breton’s agricultural space,” explains Florian Barbotin. The decrease in this availability in corn in winter, especially around agricultural and silos buildings, is considered a central problem.
“We create our problems ourselves”
For Lpo Brittany, it is also a matter of understanding “the role of agricultural landscape in its behavior, in particular the homogenization of cultures.” For example, the Choucas de las Torres are almost without a predator or competitor due to the fall of biodiversity in the agricultural landscape. “Promotes the few species that manage to adapt,” said Florian Barbotin.
“We create our problems ourselves, it does not depend on the Choucas to pay that,” he added, remembering that the species began to increase in Brittany in the early 1980s, either before he was protected. “Therefore, it is not this state that has contributed to its growth, but in particular to the conditions of agriculture,” said the specialist.
Meanwhile, as indicated by dairy producer, Frédéric Gouallier, “there is no insurance to compensate for the damage caused” by the Choucas in the fields. For Mayenne Fdsea, such subsidies are not a solution: “Our goal is to solve the problem,” concludes Romain Devaux.
Source: BFM TV
