Pionnier de l'écologie, Luc a créé une réserve naturelle en Camargue

We are retirees of the Toudivala, we don't see each other every day, but quite often. We ride bikes together, we do ornithology together, and we have worked together for many years. This one is white, with a cuckoo singing behind it. It's standing on its nest. But I think this one will soon have little ones, won't it? Yes, yes. Out of all the Toudivalas, I think there are 13 nests that are occupied this year. 13? Yes, there are 6 or 7 in this sector. Like many people, I think I fell in love with the Camargue a long time ago. It's a place where there is a great diversity of species of birds and even of plants. For me, it's a paradise. Look at the tamarisk, where the male is born, and the female at the bottom. Magnificent! I was born in England, near Nottingham, and I lived in England until the age of 21. I was always interested in nature, especially in birds. I wanted to work with birds, and this opportunity was given to me by Luke Hoffman. And then I settled in Camargue in 1962. And for me, it was a dream. The dream is the Toudivala, a huge area of 2600 hectares, owned by the Swiss Luke Hoffman. Luke Hoffman is a pioneer, an ecologist before his time, passionate about ornithology, who, during his lifetime, will commit his fortune and his energy for a cause, the protection of humid areas. His fight begins here, in Camargue, in 1947. He is 24 years old. He buys the area of the Toudivala. Little by little, he enlarges the property. He makes a natural reserve, then a research station for biologists and researchers from all over the world. There were practically no ecologists at that time. And at the beginning, when we started the station, it was very difficult to recruit people who knew nature in France. So Luke Hoffman, for me, is an exceptional person. Both for man and for the work he did during his lifetime. It's quite incredible. It's really easy. It's really not easy. Look. 800... 824. The fact that this marsh still exists like this, which is really exceptional, it's really thanks to Luke Hoffman. If he hadn't bought it, we can imagine what it would have become. It would have been transformed into a reserve, as is the case for a large part of the lands that have been transformed in the last 50 years in Camargue. So really, we are in an ancient arm of the Rhône, which has a whole history and which is now of incredible wealth. And the fact that he bought it and passed it on to a foundation to protect the entire Toudivala, it's something unique and very important. When I was a young ornithologist, the Toudivala was the Mecque for all the ornithologists in France because it was in a station where birds were flocking, in the centre of France. And when you saw the annual report of what the Toudivala was doing, it was unimaginable. Then I went down in the afternoon, and I was still an ornithologist, and when we talked about the Toudivala, I wanted to go, I wanted to go. Then I managed to go there. Then I managed to go back and work there, and I worked on the Herons. And after seven years of Herons, I was asked if I wanted to take care of the domain. And for almost 20 years now, I've been taking care of the domain. Everywhere I go on the Toudivala, I see eagles passing by, a hawk, a stag, a snake. There are lots and lots of things. I'm always looking to see if there's something passing by. So here we are on an old Heron's arm. So on the left, where there's still water, we get the excess irrigation water for the rice fields. But we close it so as not to put water everywhere. Oh, there's a nest of little ducks over there. There's the sea lying on the water. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. The last one was all alone, the ugly duck. Yeah, the last one won't go far. And it's an area that's no longer pastured. It's been almost a month since the Herons were removed. And it's almost one of the last places in France where there's a kind of dragonfly, the little blue dragonfly. It's called the Nesta Granstigma, where there was a... And here it is, flying there. Everything that flies there, dark blue there. So there aren't many seas like this in Camargue, since the seas are over-pastured. So this dragonfly has almost disappeared from France. And really, the bastion is the Tour du Valas. In the 1960s, things were not going well. The Flemish interrupted the edification for five years. And so it was a task that Leucoff himself had set for himself. It was to try to find out why the Flemish were no longer here. And if we could identify the problems, to find remedies. We proposed to make an artificial nylon that could suit the Flemish. And that was done in 1970. The Flemish were not immediately attracted by this nylon, until we had the idea to put artificial nests. And what we did, just like the kids make sand castles on the beach. And I really think that the presence of these nests on the nylon attracted the Flemish to this breeding site. It was in 1974. And the Flemish have been nesting every year since. The peak of occupation of this breeding site was in the year 2000, when 22,200 pairs of Flemish nested. They raised 14,000 chicks. Flemish herding began in 1977. It was therefore imperative to observe the birds in the colonies. And for this, we built an observation tower during the winter, which was placed 70 meters from the Flemish breeding site. So how to go to this tower, 70 meters from the birds, without disturbing them? We had to have a hideout. Because the Flemish, like other species, are afraid of humans. They are not afraid, for example, of people who are locked in a car. It's not a danger. It's the man who is a danger. Come on, girls. Come on, girls. The bull, the bull. Here he is, he is in front of us. Then he has the muzzle, he has a scar on the muzzle. Here, that's it, he's going through. And this little one, he has a big problem with his hind legs. When he was born, I guess his mother crushed his pelvis. And he has always had the flageolet approach, which did not prevent him from having us. When we got out of the herd, he hid with two of his friends. We could never get him out of here. Come here, come on. Hop, hop. Come on. Apparently, they all went well. There are hardly any that are dragging their legs. There is no problem. So I'm not more worried than that. My only concern is the four calves from last year that we could not get out of, which were hidden in the bushes and which have always remained in the middle of the herd. Because the little genies, they are a little small to stay with the calves. We will come on horseback for a ride to bring them a little closer. Camargue breeding is done for the exclusive purpose of race to the clocard. At the Tour du Valas, we do not breed for this purpose. Originally, the herd had been set up to manage the vegetation of the area, as a large part is in the natural zone. If we did not want it to be invaded by bushes, that there is an evolution of the biotopes towards something that we did not want, we had a mechanical means with gyro grinders, but we preferred the more natural means and we started setting up our herd in 94. We started small to see what the terrain could support and as we went up, we arrived at 330. In fact, we are a little different from the other Camarguers since we do not feed the herd. The herd only eats what it finds on the ground and our threshold was the availability of grass for the winter. Originally, the first goal, we have large swamps that serve as feed for the ducks in winter and we wanted these swamps to be raked to offer good landing tracks for the ducks in winter. We favored the growth of a plant, it is the maritime syrp. By favoring this plant, it favored the appearance of geese and we have a population of geese that is still growing and we are the main breeding site of geese in winter. This is not quite what we wanted originally. Originally, we wanted a landing track and now we end up with a restaurant with geese. It's not quite the same, but we do not complain. The management of a natural area is not an exact science. We tweak a little and after a while, we see the mistakes we have made and we see if we can rectify them or not. Come here, slowly. I have four sites around the mass that are equipped with white light and black light and every evening I do the tour to see the butterflies that come there. So every evening I come, when I can. Basically, it's on average 260-280 evenings a year. Around 11.30, well, about 11, 11.30 I come and I count all the species. It's interesting and it adds a little more knowledge about the different species at the level of the Tour du Valas. We count the birds, we count the large mammals, we count the reptiles a little, but the butterflies, the insects, no one does regular monitoring of a species. Now, sometimes it's a bit strange, but in ten years, when we see the curves of certain species, the large species, there is, for example, where is the small one? The Pithecidae tamaris. The Pithecidae tamaris, this tiny species, last year I didn't have any. So, my free evenings, or my busy evenings, after the occupation or before, I come to count my butterflies. I'm not paid more, it's just for fun. A-N-F-L A-N-F-L, in what sense? From the bottom to the top. It's a Flemish bird from the 80s. So, it's a Flemish bird that's about 20 years old. So, of the six birds we read last night, there was B-V-H-L. I see that it's a bird that was caught in 1993, and I also see that it's a great traveler, it went to Sardinia in 2000, then to Libya, it returned to Sardinia and Tunisia, before going to Turkey. There are even a Flemish, or two Flemish, that went to Switzerland. The Flemish Baguettes, so it's proof of their wild origins. This year, the Flemish began to nest around mid-April, so we have to count one month for the incubation period. At the beginning of mid-May, there will be chicks, and these chicks, around one month old, will go to a nursery, and they will stay in this nursery until they are two and a half months old. And every year, since 1977, we capture and bag some of these chicks. These birds are captured for bagging at the age of two and a half months, that is, a few days before the flight of the largest chicks. It's an operation that takes place early in the morning, and it can be quite surprising, because to bag 800 chicks, it takes about two hours to two and a half hours, that is, to capture them, to put two bags on them, so this is JFFD, to measure them, to weigh the chicks, and then to make sound recordings to see the sexing of the chicks. ... I think we saved them, because the permanent disappearance of a colony in Camargue would certainly have had, as a result, a very strong decline, if not a disappearance of the Flemish population of the Mediterranean. We saw you observe the Flemish, note the number of bags. Why are you doing this? As a scientist, I think it never stops, and I'm always interested in the Flemish study of the Tour du Valais and the entire Mediterranean region, and I like to contribute as much as I can to this study. Cheers! Delicious! It is thanks to Luik Hoffman that I was able to spend a lot of time with the Flemish. He is someone for whom it has always been a pleasure to work for the conservation of birds and wetlands. When I started to take care of these things, we heard about the protection of nature, the establishment of natural reserves and parks. Today we see that we have to take care of nature every day and everywhere, and if we don't do it, we will have a degradation of the living conditions of man.