Underground hunting with hounds in summer: five new victories for badgers!

This year, we have decided to position ourselves as a force to be reckoned with in the fight against underground hunting with hounds, filing emergency interim suspension hearings either alone and anywhere where decrees start additional periods between 15 May and 1 July, or by joining forces with our partners*.

An unprecedented success for badger cubs and their parents

3500: that is the number of badgers that our legal action has currently allowed to be spared, in 19 out of 24 departments. Each victory is more satisfying than the last when we know the cruelty of this hobby that our infiltration investigation has shown fully and the difficulty in convincing jurisdictions despite this practice being rejected by more than 4 in 5 French people (Ipsos/One Voice survey, October 2022).

In the five departments where we have just won, hundreds of badger families would have been wiped out following long hours of being hunted. Female badgers and their young killed at point-blank range, after having tried in vain to flee to the depths of their setts, their refuge that they took months to build and which hunters would destroy in a few hours.

In Loir-et-Cher, the Orléans Administrative Tribunal has once again swept away the arguments conjured up by the Prefecture. A relief largely shared by local elected representatives invested with us and in this fight such as the Town Mayor, Catherine Le Troquier. 150 to 200 individuals spared! To which we can add the 250 to 300 in Ille-et-Vilaine, 150 in Aisne, and several dozen in Haute-Loire….

Victories that do not spell the end of the fight

Faced with our determination, several departments have chosen to abandon their draft decrees. In Savoie, after a dismal failure (it only took a few hours for the urgent applications judge to render their decision!), the State Representative simply decided not to authorise underground hunting with hounds from 1 July, as he had been about to do! In Vienne, our victory also forced the Prefecture to back down.

In the weeks to come, the following hearings are scheduled: 17 July at the Limoges Administrative Tribunal (for Corrèze), 18 July in Clermont-Ferrand (for Allier and Cantal), on 25 July in Melun (for Seine-et-Marne), on 27 July in Nantes (for Maine-et-Loire), and on 1 August in Dijon (for Creuse).

The prefects will always find us in their way to defend badgers. More than ever, we need your help to give them a voice. Sign our petitions for a radical reform of hunting, for a ban on underground badger hunting with hounds, and to change their image!

*One Voice’s partner associations for the hearings mentioned: Allier: Animal Cross, AVES, FNE 03, FNE AURA, LPO AURA; Aisne, Creuse, Ille-et-Vilaine, Maine-et-Loire, and Seine-et-Marne: AVES; Cantal: Animal Cross, AVES, FNE 15, FNE AURA, LPO AURA; Haute-Loire: AVES, FNE 43, FNE AURA, LPO AURA; Savoie: Animal Cross, FNE 73, LPO AURA.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice