Badger hunting: hell underground

When it comes to cruelty, hunters have never lacked inspiration. And among their worst ideas of hunting, there is one in particular which is quite monstrous: the underground venery. This perfectly legal practice consists in harassing an animal to the bottom of its burrow to subject it to hours of terror and pain before its last breath. Followers of this "leisurely past time" are oh so joyful and relentless in their pursuit, especially on badgers ... You know, these shy and harmless little mammals. What could be better than persecuting defenceless beings to savour the pleasure of seeing them suffer and then congratulating oneself on being "the strongest"?

A high-risk infiltration

At our own risk, we managed to infiltrate the extremely closed environment of these hunts involving the digging out of a badger. For years, we have been trying to get inside this circle to expose these horrors. It took a lot of courage and self-confidence of our investigators to covertly integrate these "crews" without being exposed, to rub shoulders with these sadists pretending to be fellow hunters, to witness the massacres without flinching and document them to advance the cause of badgers. If the members of our team succeeded perfectly and returned from it physically unscathed, they were nevertheless very affected morally by these unbearable scenes which they had to witness. It is enough to look at the images they took, which are unpublished in France, to measure the level of violence and crass imbecility which is reached during these "hunting parties".

An armed and alcoholic gang against a sleeping family

It is with their dogs and armed with shovels, pickaxes, axes, digging pliers, sawed-down firing rifles and packs of beer that groups of diggers hunt down their victims. They know where to go. The burrows are well known. Drunken parties of diggers make a "tour" regularly outside the hunting season to locate them in advance and know where to go during the season ... The catch promises to be good and the carnage tasty! As soon as they arrive on the scene, they plug the exit holes of the burrows using pieces of wood or shovels planted vertically, in order to prevent their prey from escaping through holes other than those from which the dogs have entered. It’s the beginning of spring, the badger couples have given birth to their young and the families are still sleeping peacefully at the bottom of their homes. But suddenly, their world is torn apart...

Pain is good, the longer the better

They have taken up residence under a large oak tree, whose majestic roots form the structure of their burrow. Between them, the burrow cannot collapse. Both natural protection and columns between which the corridors can extend. But now the openings in their burrow close one by one, blocked by shovels or branches.

Suddenly thunder rises above their heads. Shovels strike the ground, or the trees overlooking their burrow and explode like the sound of many detonations. It’s panic. A badger cub painfully wakes from his sleep and sees his parents panicked.

The couple do not know which direction to take to shelter their little one: the exits are closed, and intruders have entered the burrow. Meanwhile, they must face the barking and the fangs which approach, the cries of humans on the surface intoxicated by alcohol and the smell of blood. The badgers howl, imploring, overwhelming, but only laughter responds to their pleas.  

The badger parents then sought to prevent the dogs from accessing the underground room where they had taken refuge, right under the oak trunk. To do this, all the conduits must be closed as quickly as possible, to create an airtight pocket for the rest of the burrow, the last resort in case of threatening intrusions. And it is surrounded from all sides that the terrorized animals will helplessly put up for almost five hours, with this relentless demolition of their only refuge. 

The diggers, armed with probes that they push into the ground to the tunnels, then ears pressed to the ground, listen to where the cries of the animals come from, estimate the depth of the burrow and the most strategic place to dig. But there, it seems that the oak tree stands between them and their future victims. Never mind: armed with an ax, they will take turns cutting one of the three main roots of the tree, measuring over twenty centimeters in diameter.  

Lacking air, the father will try to allow his little one to breathe by opening the protective pouch a little. It will not take more for the dogs to manage, after hours of research, to locate them. The father, trying to save his baby is bitten and utters a heartrending moan. Suddenly, metal pincers come in, searching. His baby is grabbed by the abdomen between the iron pincers and then torn from the hole. The unfortunate one will thus be «presented» in its extreme distress to the hunters and their fans in jubilation... The shot will ring out. The badger freezes, then convulses for some time. A huntsman then begins a little dance, and sings "pointed like a knife, sharpened like a blade". A few moments and another shot ring out, the adult male will in turn be shot, directly in his hole, after a fight which will cause one of the exhausted dogs to lose an ear tip. His body will join that of his son, abandoned on the ground. As for the mother and the other badger cubs, protected by the remaining roots, the "tired" hunters will leave them in their ravaged burrow, without failing to fill the trench, so that they die asphyxiated there ... 

The corpses will then be dragged through the woods to the trailer used to transport the dogs, where they will be thrown unceremoniously.

More damage in a day than badgers in a year!

The hunters will leave behind a bereaved and traumatized badger mother with potentially other cubs, an amputated oak, dozens of buried cigarette butts. Not to mention the damage caused to crops in the field adjacent to the wood, much greater than that which a family of badgers can do in a year, by dint of going back and forth to fetch who a tool, who additional drinks…

Abolish this sadism!

How many thousands of corpses and vile images will it take to rally the public and politicians to the cause of these martyred animals? This scandal must be banned, badgers must be protected. Everyone must open their eyes to the shameful realities of underground hunting, as it is done in the secret of the undergrowth. And face the magnitude of this badger tragedy.

Everyone must open their eyes to the shameful realities of underground hunting, as it is done in the secret of the undergrowth. And face the magnitude of the tragedy experienced by badgers.