Snowball effect against digging out badgers! Departments at the Bern Convention?

Time after time, administrative jurisdictions have ruled to suspend the additional period for underground hunting with hounds from May to September. For years, with our investigative footage, we have condemned this type of cruel hunting, particularly for badgers and dogs, as well as it being illegal. And our fight will not stop there: outside of our action on a national level, we have just filed a complaint against France at the Bern Standing Committee along with our partners.

According to the State: if in doubt, let’s make hunters happy!

Digging out is a type of hunting which persecutes families of badgers for hours. In the confusion, the female badgers try to defend their young, sometimes injuring the dogs, before themselves being killed by hunters by being attacked with a knife or gun. The young who survive these assaults die a few days later, left alone in the woodland.

The arguments put forward by the State to defend this practice are swept aside by tribunals: yes, in the spring and summer, badger cubs are still present in the setts. Yes, underground hunting is a ‘blind’ hunt, to quote the Amiens Administrative Tribunal, which does not allow a distinction between the young, adults, or even individuals from a protected species.

And prefectures accept the fact that measures imposed by law are not respected. Numerous decrees for which we have obtained a suspension have been passed even though the State services have no data on badgers; no idea of the number of individuals present in the country and of the alleged damage that is the subject of far-fetched assessments. In Haute-Vienne, the State claimed that the badgers would prey on cattle!

If in doubt, ‘let’s make hunters happy’ seems to be the State’s motto when it comes to hunting.

If, in these six areas, the female badgers and their families have their lives saved in the months to come, the list of prefectures authorising digging out this spring and summer will continue to grow. In ten other departments, the additional period for underground hunting will open from 15 May. And a number of them have not, to this date, published the decrees authorising this practice. A way to ensure that, even if we refer to a judge, hunters have enough time to be able to devote themselves to their hobby.

Our fight continues to obtain a ban on underground hunting

The fight against digging out is a marathon: on 17 May at 10:15am, we will be at the Orléans Administrative Tribunal to obtain a definitive cancellation on two decrees passed in 2021 which authorise additional periods in Indre-et-Loire and Loir-et-Cher.

In the weeks to come, we will increase our action to continue to give badgers a voice and to obtain an urgent suspension on them being hunted during this very delicate time for their young. Emergency interim proceedings have already been set at the Clermont-Ferrand Administrative Tribunal on 30 May at 10am for the Allier and Puy-de-Dôme Departments where we will step in alongside FNE 03 and FNE 63. In Lyon, we will defend badgers in Rhône on 31 May at 10am. In Orléans, on 5 June at 2pm, we will attack the Eure-et-Loir and Loiret decrees.

Other hearings will be announced for the Vendée, Loir-et-Cher, Lot-et-Garonne, Meuse, and also the Aisne Departments, where hunters want to kill young badgers to be able to rifle through the contents of their stomachs in order to prove that they would be weaned by May. With our partner AVES, we will request an immediate suspension on this heinous decree.

Although magistrates appear to already understand that digging out badgers in the spring is illegal, this is far from being the case for our councillors or local authorities: to convince them, continue to sign our petition for the badgers and for a radical reform on hunting!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice