Six hearings to come and twelve towns invested in our action for badgers!
Despite the victories that came one after the other, prefects are persisting, and One Voice is going back into battle. On 15 May, the day that underground hunting with hounds will be reopened in numerous departments, we will be present throughout France to spread awareness of these animals who are hunted down into their setts. And, like last year, we will refer to the legal system to get the illegal decrees authorising massacres suspended. The first hearings are on 7 May at 11am at the Rennes Administrative Tribunal (Finistère), 13 May at 2:30pm in Nantes (Mayenne and Loire-Atlantique), 14 May at 2:30pm in Orléans (Cher) and Toulouse (Aveyron), 16 May at 11am in Rennes (Morbihan), and 23 May at 3pm in Rouen (Eure).
On 11, 12, 18, and 22 May, we are organising action to raise awareness in several towns against digging out (NB: check the event on the day). In Aix-en-Provence (on the 18th), Amiens, Angers, Bar-le-Duc, Bourgoin-Jallieu, Brive-la-Gaillarde (on the 22nd), Gap (on the 12th), Flers (on the 18th), Lille, Limoges (on the 12th), Metz and also Nice, join our activists against this practice that has been rejected by more than 8 in 10 French people year after year since 2018 (IPSOS/One Voice survey, October 2023)!
The objective: show who these animals truly are, who just want to live. And show the fate reserved for them, documented thanks to our infiltration investigation among badger, and also fox, diggers, and which allowed this subject to enter into public debate in 2020.
On 15 May, as part of International Badger Day, we will also be participating in a conference organised by the local branch of ASPAS in Grenoble. We will be waiting for you there!
We will also continue to defend these animals before public authorities. The fight is tough as hunters are so influential. In Limoges, they have even decided to organise a day in honour of underground hunting with hounds, to interfere with our action.
But things are changing! We are calling on the National Forestry Office, a collective that we are part of, who recently committed to encouraging a ban on the hunting of badgers and foxes in its area from 2025.
One Voice’s action is decisive in the change that is happening against digging out!
The year 2023 will have marked a turning point in the fight against underground hunting with hounds outside of the hunting season: in more than 30 departments, it has been urgently suspended thanks to the association’s legal actions! Judges have confirmed this decision after decision: digging out in the spring and summer constitutes a major danger for badger cubs, who are in fact protected by law. These same badger cubs who, in Eure-et-Loir, have been killed by hunters despite the ban, and have had their stomachs analysed as part of a “study” by the National Federation of Hunters. Weaning does not constitute proof that the young are autonomous, for their species any more than for us humans. We are attacking for them too.
But prefects prefer to purely and simply brush aside the 37 rulings in favour of badgers in 2023 and the dozens from previous years to better satisfy hunters. Our first emergency interim proceedings for 2024 will be looked into in the weeks to come:
- With the LPO for Finistère (Rennes Administrative Tribunal on 7 May at 11am).
- On our own for Mayenne and Loire-Atlantique (Nantes Administrative Tribunal on 13 May at 2:30pm) and for Cher (Orléans Administrative Tribunal on 14 May at 12:30pm).
- With AVES for Aveyron (Toulouse Administrative Tribunal on 14 May at 2:30pm), for Morbihan (Rennes Administrative Tribunal on 16 May at 11am), and for Eure (Rouen Administrative Tribunal on 23 May at 3pm).
More than ever, sign our petition for a radical reform on hunting, specifically for a ban on digging out, and for the pure and simple abolition of underground hunting with hounds and the protection of badgers, and join us from 11 to 22 May throughout France for our actions to raise awareness of foxes and badgers who are victims of hunters!