There will be no badger digging in Nièvre this spring!

Each year, department prefects can authorise the opening of an “additional period for underground hunting of badgers with hounds” by special dispensation from 15 May. A dispensation which has no other purpose than to satisfy the demands of diggers.

That is what the Nièvre Prefect did by authorising two additional periods in spring 2022 and spring 2023 with the decree of 27 May 2022. Faced with the illegality shown by this decree, we had, as had all our partners, referred to the Dijon Administrative Tribunal to demand its cancellation.

A quick victory without appeal

At the hearing on 23 March, we had badgers’ voices heard. And this was a victory without appeal: the Prefect’s decree was illegal, since it had been adopted following an unlawful procedure.

In fact, the law states that decrees of this kind must be preceded by a public consultation. Within this framework, the State services must write a presentation note indicating the context and the objectives of the decree. But the Nièvre Prefect did not bother with these formalities: the note written by his services included five paragraphs, each several lines long, and quite simply did not mention badger digging. A mistake that deprived the public of any guarantee and completely justifies the cancellation of the decree.

The procedure was enough to tip the scales

If this reasoning was enough to obtain a cancellation of the decree being challenged, we will continue to put forward substantive arguments that have already been validated by several administrative tribunals. In fact, the opening of an additional period of underground hunting with hounds in the spring inevitably leads to the death of badger cubs, in total violation of the Environmental Code, as well as endangering animals from a protected species who also live in these burrows.

Nièvre badgers will therefore have a few months of respite this spring. In all other departments, One Voice will bring their voices before tribunals until this type of cruel hunting is definitively abolished.

Join us on the weekend of 13 and 14 May on the ground throughout France for World Day for Badgers! And before then, sign our petition.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice