Hopping mad: French couple lose marathon court battle to save noisy mating frogs

French couple ordered to drain frog pond to end noisy antics of their grenouilles

Credit:  Tim Gainey

A couple living in southwestern France have lost a nine-year legal battle over the croaking of their frogs in a pond that drove their neighbours hopping mad.

Michel and Annie Pecheras, who live in Grignols, an isolated hamlet in Dordogne, have been told they have 90 days to drain the 300 sq-metre pond and get rid of the grenouilles (frogs) after neighbours complained the noise from its mating amphibians was disturbing their rural peace.

For generations, the frogs have croaked during the mating season in the garden of their house.

But their love-making antics proved too noisy for the neighbours, who filed a legal complaint to remove the pond in 2012. A  bailiff duly investigated and found the frogs croaked at 63 decibels — the equivalent of a washing machine or vacuum cleaner.

The ruling is the latest in a line of battles over the sounds of the countryside, often pitting "neo-rurals" in search of peace after the city with established locals furious at being told what to do.

Environmental campaigners have argued that some of the frogs are protected species.

Dordogne couple Michel and Annie Pecheras have finally begun draining their pond to remove noisy frogs

Credit: Frenki Jung/Solent News & Photo Agency
/Solent News & Photo Agency 

Mr Pecheras insisted that his neighbour Jean-Louis Malfione had not complained when he moved the pond from its initial location 12 years ago and even asked who had done the work so he could have his own pond.

However, in 2012, the Malfiones brought legal action, backed by a bailiff who asserted the croaking was too loud.

In 2014 the case was first thrown out by a local court but later upheld by a Bordeaux judge. Since then it has hopped back and forth between legal jurisdictions. An appeal by environmental campaigners for the frogs to be moved before the pond was drained also failed.

Given the prospect of daily fines of €150 (£136) and prison after a judgment this month, the Pécheras have finally begun emptying the pond, which also houses fish and ducks.

However, the legal tussle continues.

The environment group Société pour l’Étude et l’Aménagement de la nature dans le Sud-Ouest is appealing to the cour de cassation, the highest court in France. Another insists there are six protected species in the pond.

A petition to save the "grenouilles de Grignols" has reached more than 93,000 signatures in under a week.

Mrs Pécheras said: “If the court de cassation rules in our favour, the Malfionis will have to pay to have our pond put back.”

Complaints of countryside noise and smells have become commonplace in France, ranging from crowing cockerels to smelly cows.

This not the first time a French tribunal has taken exception to frogs’ noisy love-making.

In Reynies in the nearby Tarne-et-Garonne, a British family was taken to court by a French neighbour, who claimed the croaking frogs in their pond made life intolerable for his sick wife.

Despite arguing that the town’s name was derived from the French word for a tree frog, the Britons ended up losing the case.

A law was passed earlier this year declaring the sounds and smells of the countryside part of France’s “rural sensory heritage” and thus protected in an attempt to end the slew of legal complaints.