Peace for badgers this summer in fourteen departments!

Unprecedented for badgers and their cubs!

For several weeks, there have been a flurry of victories for badgers! In eighteen departments, we have attacked the opening of additional periods for underground hunting with hounds in spring and summer before the courts. The most recent suspensions to date: in Aube and Meuse, and in Loiret and Eure-et-Loir, where judges have swept away hunters’ and prefectures’ arguments.

These are added to the ten departments where the tribunals have said stop. Yes, badger cubs are dependant on their parents at this time of the year! Yes, underground hunting with hounds will inevitably lead to the young being killed if it is authorised in spring and summer in addition to the season when it is already allowed!

The Amiens Tribunal was not mistaken when qualifying this fatal hobby as ‘blind hunting’. And some jurisdictions have gone even further. The Poitiers Tribunal has also confirmed that which we have been stating for a long time: badgers must be considered as ‘young’ for quite some time, until they reach sexual maturity, and not, as stated by Prefectures whose laws are often blown up by hunting federations, until they are weaned (because it is only food!).

Thanks to the administrative proceedings urgently filed and pleaded, almost three thousand individuals will have their lives saved in the months to come. The young can grow peacefully without the fear of hunters’ shovels, guns, and knives.

... and a few defeats that raise questions

In Lyon (for the Rhône and Loire decrees), Bordeaux (Lot-et-Garonne), and Nantes (Vendée), urgent applications judges have decided to choose to take the opposite position to their colleagues in Limoges, Pau, Toulouse, Clermont-Ferrand, Caen, Amiens, Châlons-en-Champagne, and Nancy, however. And their decisions are (sadly) full of lessons.

For Vendée, the Nantes Administrative Tribunal indicated to us that for them, hunting with hounds does not pose a problem with regard to animal suffering because hunters would use ‘non-invasive pliers’ (as if that changes anything about the disastrous outcome of such a hunt) and, the cherry on the cake, that they can decide not to kill the animals that they have dragged out of the setts! All while admitting that those who will not benefit from this preferential treatment could be killed with a bladed weapon. Who could understand this?

When it comes to the Bordeaux Tribunal’s decision for Lot-et-Garonne, they surprised us because it looked exactly the same as the one returned a few days before by the Lyon one... Of course: the document header was that of the Lyon Administrative Tribunal! Corrected a few days later, this copy and paste nevertheless remains very concerning regarding the way in which rejection decisions are made by judges, given that they are not even written on a case-by-case basis.

Our fight for badgers is far from over

With FNE, the LPO, and Animal Cross, we have attacked Savoie’s decree: the hearing is on 16 June at 9:30am at the Grenoble Administrative Tribunal.
For Haute-Loire, AVES is joining this coalition and the hearing will take place on 20 June at 9:30am in Clermont-Ferrand.
For Aisne, along with AVES once again, we will defend the badgers on 16 June at 9:30am in Amiens.
Finally, we will be present alone in Dijon on 23 June at 2:15pm for Saône-et-Loire.

With a view to protecting badgers and for a ban on underground hunting with hounds thanks to a radical reform on hunting (progress that you can support by signing our petitions), we will continue to fight on local, national, and international levels.

With your help, we will pursue our legal attack as completely and thoroughly as necessary. Thanks to your support, we will not let it happen and we will fight until the end for badgers!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice