As we feared, the Moselle Prefect has authorised the killing of animals inside the Saint-Avold American cemetery.

2023: a record year for badgers!

2023: a record year for badgers!
18.08.2023
2023: a record year for badgers!
Hunting

2023 was a milestone year. In ten new departments, judges have once again suspended additional periods for underground hunting with hounds. A grand finale that has closed an historic season where 80% of decrees contested by the association were suspended: in 29 areas out of the 36 where we have attacked, badger cubs and their parents will have their lives saved. More than 4000 of them will live and digging out is on the chopping block more than ever.

In March 2023, we launched a big legal push against additional periods for underground hunting with hounds. We have pulled out all the stops, along with our partners where it was possible, and rallied all of our energy to fight this type of unbearable hunting. Up until the middle of the summer, we attacked the prefectural decrees and continued to obtain bans on these planned massacres, often before the hunting season even started.

Ten new victories, and thousands of badgers saved

The ten suspensions obtained recently can be added to the 19 suspensions already obtained throughout the spring and summer.

In Aveyron, Corrèze, Creuse, Haute-Vienne, Indre, Indre-et-Loire, Seine-et-Marne, and Orne, with our partner AVES, we have convinced judges of the necessity of urgently suspending digging out. Faced with a total lack of any serious data and the risks for badger families that we have systematically shown, judges have heard us and have swept away the hunters’ untruthful arguments that they were whispering to the State.

We have even pushed the limits of the law on the ban on killing the young! In Essonne, in which we attacked alongside the LPO, the Tribunal did not let themselves be fooled by the Prefecture’s attempts, who had reported the opening of this type of hunting on 15 July supposedly to protect the young, and said ‘stop’ to this carnage despite the late date, since badger cubs are present in the setts for at least one year.

And in Puy-de-Dôme, the Clermont-Ferrand Administrative Tribunal confirmed its position: even though the Prefecture took out a second decree following our first victory – scheming that did not really surprise us much as the Prefectures are used to these practices – we once again achieved our aim with Animal Cross, AVES, FNE Aura, FNE Puy-de-Dôme, and LPO Aura.

In total, more than 4000 individuals were saved in total in 29 departments that went against the closure of this type of hunting that was already authorised for the rest of the year, and which we condemned the cruelty of thanks to a high-risk infiltration investigation within a team of diggers.

Additional period for underground hunting with hounds: the beginning of the end!

Thanks to all of this success, digging out in the spring and summer is jeopardised more than ever. The State Council itself confirmed without ambiguity the law banning killing badger cubs, and invited us to continue, department by department, to attack decrees. They are counting on us! Because if the additional period is in the dock, prefects do not give up: for spring 2024, several dozen decrees have already been passed… But we will be there, whenever needed, to put a definitive end to these massacres.

Let’s not forget that after the additional period, digging out could restart from September in numerous departments. Badgers are targeted, but also foxes, as we have shown in our infiltrations. We are going to continue to increase initiatives – such as our complaint to the Bern Convention – and to give these animals a voice, alongside the public!

All of these victories lead the way to the end of this unbearable persecution that these reserved heroes who are true architects of our country’s underground spaces are subjected to. Behind their black and white coat, they provide major services for wildlife (for example, their setts shelter protected species such as bats, wild cats, or even otters). In Bas-Rhin, like in several European countries (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Luxembourg…), hunting them is banned and damage is not increased: logical, since badgers feed mainly on berries. They can reproduce in peace here – and this happens slowly, which further justifies them being protected.

So that diggers stop spreading terror in the countryside – as more than four in five French people would like (IPSOS/One Voice survey, September 2022)- more than ever, support badgers and sign our petition for the abolition of underground badger hunting with hounds and for their protection!

The 29 victories in the spring and summer of 2023

• Aisne: hearing of 16/06/2023 (Amiens Administrative Tribunal)

• Aube: hearing of 06/06/2023 (Châlons-en-Champagne Administrative Tribunal)

• Allier: hearing of 30/05/2023 and 18/07/2023 (Clermont-Ferrand Administrative Tribunal)

• Aveyron: hearing of 27/07/2023 (Toulouse Administrative Tribunal)

• Charente-Maritime: hearing of 09/05/2023 (Poitiers Administrative Tribunal)

• Corrèze: hearing of 17/07/2023 (Limoges Administrative Tribunal)

• Creuse: hearing of 01/08/2023 (Limoges Administrative Tribunal)

• Essonne: hearing of 09/08/2023 (Versailles Administrative Tribunal)

• Eure-et-Loir: hearing of 05/06/2023 (Orléans Administrative Tribunal)

• Haute-Loire: hearing of 20/06/2023 (Clermont-Ferrand Administrative Tribunal)

• Haute-Vienne: hearing of 01/08/2023 (Limoges Administrative Tribunal)

• Ille-et-Vilaine: hearing of 08/06/2023 (Rennes Administrative Tribunal)

• Indre: hearing of 01/08/2023 (Limoges Administrative Tribunal)

• Indre-et-Loir: hearing of 10/08/2023 (Orléans Administrative Tribunal)

• Loir-et-Cher: hearing of 03/07/2023 (Orléans Administrative Tribunal)

• Loiret: hearing of 05/06/2023 (Orléans Administrative Tribunal)

• Maine-et-Loire: hearing of 27/07/2023 (Nantes Administrative Tribunal)

• Manche: hearing of 09/05/2023 (Caen Administrative Tribunal)

• Meuse: hearing of 13/06/2023 (Nancy Administrative Tribunal)

• Nièvre: hearing of 31/03/2023 (Dijon Administrative Tribunal)

• Oise: hearing of 09/05/2023 (Amiens Administrative Tribunal)

• Orne: hearing of 03/08/2023 (Caen Administrative Tribunal)

• Puy-de-Dôme: hearing of 30/05/2023 and 01/08/2023 (Clermont-Ferrand Administrative Tribunal)

• Savoie: hearing of 16/06/2023 (Grenoble Administrative Tribunal)

• Seine-et-Marne: hearing of 25/07/2023 (Melun Administrative Tribunal)

• Tarn-et-Garonne: hearing of 03/05/2023 (Toulouse Administrative Tribunal)

• Vienne: hearing of 26/05/2023 (Poitiers Administrative Tribunal)

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

In Bouches-du-Rhône, a fawn was trapped in a neck snare trap; the umpteen victim of these torture devices that litter the ground in our countryside.

Underground badger hunting with hounds: the State Council recognises protection given to the “young”

Underground badger hunting with hounds: the State Council recognises protection given to the “young”
08.08.2023
Underground badger hunting with hounds: the State Council recognises protection given to the “young”
Hunting

Referred to by ASPAS, AVES France, and One Voice, on 28 July, the State Council returned its decision relating to the legality of the article from the Environmental Code allowing the opening of additional periods for underground badger hunting with hounds by prefects. Although this is a mixed decision, education has already had the effect of leading administrative tribunals to suspend the additional periods in place.

Underground hunting with hounds is a hunting practice that consists of digging out animals with the help of dogs to locate and corner them, then pickaxes and shovels to dig, and finally giant pliers and knives or guns to drag them out and then slaughter the so-called hunted animals. Prefects can authorise additional periods of underground hunting with hounds with decrees, which is in addition to the annual hunting seasons, and which therefore take place between mid-May and mid-September. A ministerial decree regulates the way in which the prefects can publish these decrees on a local level. It is this ministerial decree that our associations are attacking before the State Council.

ASPAS, AVES France, and One Voice have been condemning this cruel hunting method for years, and have specifically filed a complaint at the Bern Committee and obtained numerous suspensions of prefectural decrees in recent years, thus sparing thousands of badgers.

At the centre of the debates: the young

While rejecting associations’ pleas on the grounds that the contested article does not explicitly authorise killing the “young”, he recalls the ban on killing badger cubs. In doing so, he undermines hunters’ and the Ministry of the Ecological Transition’s arguments that consist of pretending that this ban does not apply to badger hunting.

It must be clarified that the “young”, in a scientific sense, are animals that are not able to reproduce and thus to contribute to the continuation of the species. Hunters taking weaning as the date that badgers become an adult is scientific nonsense because weaning is only one step in a badger’s feeding journey. Quite logically, no scientific study mentions weaning as a sign of moving into adulthood.

Then, without commenting on scientific studies relating to the species’ biology, the State Council took the debate back to a local level: they indicated that the Prefect is required to ensure, with regard to the local situation, that “such an extension [on underground hunting with hounds] is not likely to harm the state of the badger population or to favour ignorance, by hunters, of the legal ban on destroying young badgers”.

Incomplete or missing data

Yet, on one hand, campaigns by associations to gather information carried out in recent years around prefectures have shown that they keep very little data, or even none, on badger populations on a local level. The reality of the damage that the prefectures allege to base their decrees on is never shown, including when it comes to defending these decrees in front of administrative judges.
On the other, it has also been established that in most departments, up to 40% of those killed each year are young badgers that are not sexually mature.
As a consequence, based on scientific data, the administrative judges are suspending the additional periods for underground badger hunting with hounds en masse, specifically on the grounds of the impact on the badger cubs.

The decision by the State Council has convinced tribunals to follow their lead: since this decision was published, no less than five rulings have been delivered to suspend additional periods owing to: 1) their impact on “young” badgers; and 2) the lack of reliable data kept by prefectures both on the badger populations in each department and the damage that they are alleging.

While we regret that the State Council has not taken the opportunity to definitively put an end to this dispute, since tribunals on a departmental level are continuing to be referred to with pleas against inevitably illegal additional periods, we still welcome their contribution, putting an end to absurd debates and finally making prefectures responsible when it comes to badger hunting.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

The decree listing species likely to cause damage has been published. As promised, we are challenging it!

The decree listing species likely to cause damage has been published. As promised, we are challenging it!
04.08.2023
The decree listing species likely to cause damage has been published. As promised, we are challenging it!
Hunting

The Ministry for the Ecological Transition has just published on 4 August 2023 the decree listing species likely to cause damage for the next three years. This law will consequently allow, via prefectural decrees, the trapping and slaughter of the animals listed on it in addition to the hunting period that they are already subjected to… Visibly preferring wildlife and animals dead rather than alive, the Ministry has therefore just published a law that also condemns hundreds of thousands of individuals.

Beyond the principle of considering animals as harmful (or pests) by nature, we also challenge this method that regulates how they are chosen, which is totally distorted from the start. The game is rigged for weasels, martens, foxes, crows… the agricultural and hunting lobbies are completely free to organise the declarations of damage on which the list is based at the French Departmental Commission for Hunting and Wildlife (CDCFS – Commission départementale de la chasse et de la faune sauvage).

If anyone still believes that the government was keen to defend wildlife and biodiversity, it is time to open their eyes. In reality, they are organising its decline in the more or less short-term. In this case as in so many others, hunting is well and truly a deadly problem.

The Ministry is deaf to public opinion

In total, 49,266 opinions were received on the public consultation led by the Ministry. 70% of participants were opposed to the classification project that they proposed – which is 5% more than the previous decree. Yet the final law is a complete copy-and-paste of this project, to which 7 out of 10 people were opposed to!

As we have announced, we are going to file, as are other associations, a plea before the State Council to fight this nonsense and to defend the animals being targeted by French authorities. Economic interests or human hobbies cannot systematically lead to the massacre of living beings who are just as significant!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice