Badgers will need to be ready to live through hell for nine and a half months!
One Voice leads a nonviolent fight to defend animal rights and respect all life forms. The organization operates independently and is thus free to speak and act freely.
Today the 15th May the cruellest hunt in Europe opens for 9 and a half months of hell!It is at the request of the hunting federations that the Prefects of 74 French departments authorize this scandalous hunting. Badgers are paying the price while they are still in the midst of breeding and rearing their young! That and to allow more and more French hunters to practice this kind of hunting while it’s prohibited in all the other countries of Europe: underground hunting or digging up!
In
France, badgers have the unfortunate privilege of being classified as
“a species of game with an added period of hunt”. This
status, unique in France has been tailor-made to allow the practice
of “underground hunting” while all other hunting modes are
closed until September. This status is in fact worse than that of
so-called species classified as pests, because the authorities do not
even have to justify the slightest damage to be able to sacrifice
thousands of badgers to hunters in search of hunting during spring
and summer.
To
practice digging up, the hunters meet as a “crew”. They
block all of the badger’s entrances so that the badger (s) cannot
escape, leaving only one opening, through which they bring their
terrier dogs to harass the animal in their gallery.
Cornered,
terrorized, bitten constantly, the badger will suffer for long hours
resisting and fighting for its mere survival and to protect its home.
Guided
by the barking of their dogs, the hunters dig until they reach their
target. Depending on the nature of the terrain, the depth of the
gallery, and the precision of the hunter-diggers, this operation can
take 3 to 10 hours! Once uncovered, the badger, stressed and injured,
is seized using metal tongs measuring 1.5 to 1.8 meters long. Once
removed from the burrow, it is then killed with daggers thrusts to
the heart, with a stick, or with a rifle and its remains are then
thrown to the dogs. It is not uncommon for badgers to be delivered to
dogs which are still alive. The badger will then be torn to pieces
enduring an unmeasurable suffering. This practice has a name: The
Quarry, it is intended to excite the fervour for this kind of
hunting, or to offer a show of unusual violence to humans.
In
an attempt to “justify” these horrors, hunters argue that
the practice is “traditional”, which is entirely false. If
indeed this practice is quite old, it was until recently a completely
marginal hunt. It is under the effect of a few hunters supported by
the National Federation of Hunters that the practice of underground
hunting has taken off in the last twenty years. Today there are more
than 3,000 crews in France! Around 75,000 hunters and 130,000 dogs!
And there is no set quota to supervise the massacre of badgers! As
much as these hunters want to hunt, they will kill as many as they
can!
Despite
what some hunters claim, badgers do not “swarm”. It is for this
reason that in most European countries, such as Belgium, England,
Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Italy or Greece,
these animals are protected.
Scientific
studies have shown that in France, the numbers of badgers are 0.1 to
4 or 5 per square kilometre. In England, their numbers can reach 10
individuals per square kilometre without causing any damage to
agriculture or infrastructure.
One Voice demands that this
practice, which also concerns foxes and nutria, be finally prohibited
in France, as it is in the whole of Europe and demands the protection
of badgers, they do have their place in the nature !