Manche, Orne, Haute-Vienne: a succession of victories by One Voice for badgers!

Manche, Orne, Haute-Vienne: a succession of victories by One Voice for badgers!
10.05.2023
Manche, Orne, Haute-Vienne: a succession of victories by One Voice for badgers!
Hunting

After the Dijon tribunal, it is the turn of the courts in Limoges and Caen to suspend decrees being carried out authorising badger digging in the Haute-Vienne, Manche, and Orne departments in the spring. The administrative judges recognise that there is indeed a serious doubt on the legality of these decisions. Initial victories for badgers, who will therefore have their lives saved this spring.

*This spring and summer 2023, badgers and their young will have peace in the Haute-Vienne, Orne, and Manche departments.

Under the framework of our large-scale attack against decrees authorising digging out badgers this spring, we are winning the first key victories.

On Friday 5 May, the Limoges Administrative Tribunal suspended the Haute-Vienne Prefect’s decree from being carried out. For the court, there was indeed a serious doubt on the legality of this decision, passed following botched proceedings.

In Caen, the Administrative Tribunal agreed with us and ruled, beyond the procedural flaws, that additional periods of digging out were likely to harm the young, still present in the setts at this time of year. The judge went further and, for the first time, admitted that the very possibility of digging in the spring is illegal.

At least 800 badgers spared. We will not stop there

Badgers are not animals that reproduce quickly. They only have one litter per year, and generally one or two cubs, rarely more. Their development is slow and it can take more than a year for them to gain independence!

In total, in Haute-Vienne, almost 500 of them will be saved by our actions. In Orne, more than 300 badgers and badger cubs will have their lives saved. The Manche Prefecture did not bother to tell the court how many badgers were killed each year by digging to respond to our arguments and those of AVES France (who took the same position as we did at the hearing for this department).

Year after year, One Voice and its partners obtain significant victories against illegal decrees passed by State representatives. In the weeks to come, we will continue to defend badgers in dozens of departments from Ardennes to Lot-et-Garonne and right up to the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.

More than ever, we need your help to give these animals, martyrs of our woodlands, a voice. Sign the petition to demand an abolition, pure and simple, on digging, and for us to stop using the word badger in a derogatory manner! You can also find us in thirteen towns in France for our coordinated national action to defend them as well as foxes, who are also victims of this cruel hunting method.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

In mid-May, One Voice is accompanying its legal actions with rallies against digging out foxes and badgers throughout France.

Badger digging: One Voice launches a legal attack

Badger digging: One Voice launches a legal attack
03.05.2023
Badger digging: One Voice launches a legal attack
Hunting

After an initial victory at the Dijon Administrative Tribunal, One Voice remains fully against badger digging, particularly in the spring when badger cubs are present in the setts. From Charente-Maritime in Oise to Lot-et-Garonne in Meuse, we are launching an extensive legal attack against this type of cruel hunting. The first interim hearings are in Limoges and Toulouse on 3 May, and in Poitiers, Amiens, and Caen on 9 May.

Spring 2023 promises to be particularly dreadful for female badgers and their families. Dozens of prefectural decrees are in the process of being passed, everywhere in France, tosubject them to the hell of underground hunting with hounds right in the middle of the reproduction period. The warnings that we issue as part of the numerous public consultation proceedings and decisions by administrative tribunals in our favour mean nothing: prefectures, hand in hand with hunters, continue their campaign to authorise this type of hunting despite its illegality.

In the face of widespread aggression against badgers by the State and by hunters…

This huge attack has a goal: badgers, including their young, are wrongly accused of all evils to satisfy the morbid passions of diggers.

Like all decrees passed on the subject of hunting, they are subject to public participation procedures. And, in most departments, they are biased: the prefects do not communicate any data on the number of badgers living in the department or any figures on the number of individuals killed by hunters each year.

Yet, digging out in the spring threatens the very existence of these individuals in our countryside. There is a solid scientific consensus on the fact that the young are present in the setts during this period of the year and that killing them is detrimental to the balance of the species. But, preferring to rely on studies led by hunters themselves, the prefects ignore the scientific data and de facto authorise hunters to kill the young, in clear violation of the Environmental Code.

Not to mention animals from protected species such as bats, otters, or even wild cats, who sometimes also live in the burrows of these social architects.

…a pedagogical and legal counter-offensive by One Voice for these animals

Following our investigation revealing the horrors of digging out, we have supported the petition to obtain a ban on this practice on the Senate’s site. But the resulting report ‘revealed’ once again (as we suspected…) that our political representatives will not act without huge mobilisation from everyone. After the success of the first International Day for Badgers, One Voice and its partners are rallying again this year. On 15 May, we are organising numerous actions to raise awareness to rehabilitate these wrongly singled out and martyred animals, and to demand, once again, a pure and simple ban on underground hunting with hounds.

On the legal front, we will systematically attack any decree opening an additional digging out period in the spring. The decrees have already been passed: in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, we have filed an appeal as part of a united front with our partners (FNE Aura, LPO, ASPAS, and AVES).
In the departments of Manche, Oise, Orne, Charente-Maritime and even Haute-Vienne, we have urgently referred to the administrative tribunals to obtain a suspension on these decrees: urgent hearings have thus already been set on 3 May at 2:30pm in Toulouse (in the context of a joint referral with FNE 82, ASPAS, and Aves France, at which the Géo Avocats law firm will represent us) and at 3:30pm in Limoges on the same day, as well as on 9 May at 3:30pm in Poitiers, at 1:30 in Caen, and at 2pm in Amiens

To win this fight, we need you! Join us on the weekend before 15 May, throughout France, and sign the petition specifically demanding a protected species status for badgers!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice