2023: a record year for badgers!

In March 2023, we launched a big legal push against additional periods for underground hunting with hounds. We have pulled out all the stops, along with our partners where it was possible, and rallied all of our energy to fight this type of unbearable hunting. Up until the middle of the summer, we attacked the prefectural decrees and continued to obtain bans on these planned massacres, often before the hunting season even started.

Ten new victories, and thousands of badgers saved

The ten suspensions obtained recently can be added to the 19 suspensions already obtained throughout the spring and summer.

In Aveyron, Corrèze, Creuse, Haute-Vienne, Indre, Indre-et-Loire, Seine-et-Marne, and Orne, with our partner AVES, we have convinced judges of the necessity of urgently suspending digging out. Faced with a total lack of any serious data and the risks for badger families that we have systematically shown, judges have heard us and have swept away the hunters’ untruthful arguments that they were whispering to the State.

We have even pushed the limits of the law on the ban on killing the young! In Essonne, in which we attacked alongside the LPO, the Tribunal did not let themselves be fooled by the Prefecture’s attempts, who had reported the opening of this type of hunting on 15 July supposedly to protect the young, and said ‘stop’ to this carnage despite the late date, since badger cubs are present in the setts for at least one year.

And in Puy-de-Dôme, the Clermont-Ferrand Administrative Tribunal confirmed its position: even though the Prefecture took out a second decree following our first victory – scheming that did not really surprise us much as the Prefectures are used to these practices – we once again achieved our aim with Animal Cross, AVES, FNE Aura, FNE Puy-de-Dôme, and LPO Aura.

In total, more than 4000 individuals were saved in total in 29 departments that went against the closure of this type of hunting that was already authorised for the rest of the year, and which we condemned the cruelty of thanks to a high-risk infiltration investigation within a team of diggers.

Additional period for underground hunting with hounds: the beginning of the end!

Thanks to all of this success, digging out in the spring and summer is jeopardised more than ever. The State Council itself confirmed without ambiguity the law banning killing badger cubs, and invited us to continue, department by department, to attack decrees. They are counting on us! Because if the additional period is in the dock, prefects do not give up: for spring 2024, several dozen decrees have already been passed... But we will be there, whenever needed, to put a definitive end to these massacres.

Let’s not forget that after the additional period, digging out could restart from September in numerous departments. Badgers are targeted, but also foxes, as we have shown in our infiltrations. We are going to continue to increase initiatives – such as our complaint to the Bern Convention – and to give these animals a voice, alongside the public!

All of these victories lead the way to the end of this unbearable persecution that these reserved heroes who are true architects of our country’s underground spaces are subjected to. Behind their black and white coat, they provide major services for wildlife (for example, their setts shelter protected species such as bats, wild cats, or even otters). In Bas-Rhin, like in several European countries (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Luxembourg...), hunting them is banned and damage is not increased: logical, since badgers feed mainly on berries. They can reproduce in peace here - and this happens slowly, which further justifies them being protected.

So that diggers stop spreading terror in the countryside - as more than four in five French people would like (IPSOS/One Voice survey, September 2022)- more than ever, support badgers and sign our petition for the abolition of underground badger hunting with hounds and for their protection!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice