Badgers will need to be ready to live through hell for nine and a half months!

In France, badgers have the unfortunate privilege of being classified as "a species of game with an added period of hunt". This status, unique in France has been tailor-made to allow the practice of "underground hunting" while all other hunting modes are closed until September. This status is in fact worse than that of so-called species classified as pests, because the authorities do not even have to justify the slightest damage to be able to sacrifice thousands of badgers to hunters in search of hunting during spring and summer.

To practice digging up, the hunters meet as a "crew". They block all of the badger's entrances so that the badger (s) cannot escape, leaving only one opening, through which they bring their terrier dogs to harass the animal in their gallery.

Cornered, terrorized, bitten constantly, the badger will suffer for long hours resisting and fighting for its mere survival and to protect its home.

Guided by the barking of their dogs, the hunters dig until they reach their target. Depending on the nature of the terrain, the depth of the gallery, and the precision of the hunter-diggers, this operation can take 3 to 10 hours! Once uncovered, the badger, stressed and injured, is seized using metal tongs measuring 1.5 to 1.8 meters long. Once removed from the burrow, it is then killed with daggers thrusts to the heart, with a stick, or with a rifle and its remains are then thrown to the dogs. It is not uncommon for badgers to be delivered to dogs which are still alive. The badger will then be torn to pieces enduring an unmeasurable suffering. This practice has a name: The Quarry, it is intended to excite the fervour for this kind of hunting, or to offer a show of unusual violence to humans.

In an attempt to "justify" these horrors, hunters argue that the practice is "traditional", which is entirely false. If indeed this practice is quite old, it was until recently a completely marginal hunt. It is under the effect of a few hunters supported by the National Federation of Hunters that the practice of underground hunting has taken off in the last twenty years. Today there are more than 3,000 crews in France! Around 75,000 hunters and 130,000 dogs! And there is no set quota to supervise the massacre of badgers! As much as these hunters want to hunt, they will kill as many as they can!

Despite what some hunters claim, badgers do not “swarm”. It is for this reason that in most European countries, such as Belgium, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Italy or Greece, these animals are protected.

Scientific studies have shown that in France, the numbers of badgers are 0.1 to 4 or 5 per square kilometre. In England, their numbers can reach 10 individuals per square kilometre without causing any damage to agriculture or infrastructure.

One Voice demands that this practice, which also concerns foxes and nutria, be finally prohibited in France, as it is in the whole of Europe and demands the protection of badgers, they do have their place in the nature !