Badgers: One Voice steps up the pressure against underground hunting! Eleven upcoming hearings

Hunting

At a time when young badgers are just emerging from their burrows and diggers are getting ready to go into action, we are stepping up the pressure on prefects more than ever! Together with AVES and ASPAS, we’ll be at the Bordeaux administrative court on June 19 at 10 a.m. to obtain an emergency suspension of digging in the Lot-et-Garonne department, and on June 26 at 10 a.m. for the Gironde department. Elsewhere in France, judges will give final rulings on the 2023 supplementary periods in the Puy-de-Dôme, Savoie, Rhône, Vienne, Charente-Maritime, Corrèze, Essonne, Morbihan and Côtes-d’Armor departments. Nine other hearings are already scheduled.

Urgent action to save badgers…..

Finistère, Aveyron, Cher, Morbihan, Eure, Côtes-d’Armor… In all these departments, hunters had to leave their shovels in the garage and will have to make do with forest walks instead of slaughtering animals right down to the bottom of their burrows! Although these procedures have already saved 2300 individuals, our fight is far from over: despite emergency court rulings across France, some prefects continue to authorize supplementary periods to the hunting season when badgers are already vulnerable.

We’re on deck, and will be attacking these outrageous derogations wherever we can! On June 16 and 26 at 10 a.m., together with AVES and ASPAS, we will be pleading before the Bordeaux administrative court to obtain the suspension of summer digging in Lot-et-Garonne and Gironde.

….. and putting an end to the supplementary period of underground hunting in all departments

In spring 2023, these pleas had enabled us, after a marathon lasting several months, to save almost 4,000 lives. In all these departments, judges must now rule definitively on the legality of all these authorizations! A number of hearings on the merits are scheduled over the coming weeks:

June 13 at 10am in Clermont-Ferrand for the Puy-de-Dôme department (with FNE Aura, FNE 63 and LPO Aura, AVES and Animal Cross);
June 20 at 2:15pm in Grenoble for the Savoie department (with FNE Aura, FNE 74, LPO Aura and Animal Cross);
June 25 at 2:30pm in Lyon for the Rhône department (with FNE Aura, FNE Rhône and LPO Aura);
June 27 at 9:30am in Poitiers for the Vienne department (with LPO and Vienne Nature) and the Charente-Maritime department;
June 27 at 9:30am in Limoges for the Corrèze department;
June 28 at 10:30am in Versailles for the Essonne department;
July 1 at 9:45am in Rennes for the Morbihan and Côtes d’Armor departments (with AVES).

The hours of the supplementary underground hunting period are more than ever numbered. In the face of this danger, hunters, seeing themselves as victims and blindly reversing the balance of power, have called for “general mobilization” and will do everything in their power to defend their “hobby”! But who’s got the guns? Who’s persecuting whom? Badgers and nature are the ones who bear the scars of their aggressions.

We’ll keep up the fight for as long as it takes, and speak out on behalf of these animals, in coordination with all the associations involved in this fight! To support us, sign our petitions for an end to underground hunting, the protection of badgers, and a radical reform of hunting!

Suspensions already obtained for spring 2024 on June 10, 2024: Finistère, Aveyron, Morbihan, Cher, Côtes-d’Armor, Eure.