News Archive - Page 48 of 142

Once again, we are rushing to the aid of the Bargy ibex

Once again, we are rushing to the aid of the Bargy ibex
05.06.2023
Once again, we are rushing to the aid of the Bargy ibex
Wildlife

On 17 March 2022, the Haute-Savoie Prefect passed a decree in which article 4 permits 20 ibex to be slaughtered each year without any preliminary tests. Along with its partners, One Voice is asking for an urgent suspension of this measure that condemns protected animals and puts their population in danger. We will defend them during an emergency interim hearing on 6 June at 11am before the Grenoble Administrative Tribunal.

Alongside Animal Cross, the French Association for the Protection of Wild Animals, AVES France, France Nature Environnement Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France Nature Environnement Haute-Savoie, the French League for the Protection of Birds [LPO], One Voice is coming to the aid of the Bargy ibex.

Once again, the Haute-Savoie Prefecture has called for the indiscriminate slaughter of 20 of them. Its excuse is always the same: to protect humans from brucellosis, a disease that can be carried by agile animals. Evidently, it matters very little to them that blind shooting, without preliminary tests, is ineffective. We must remind ourselves that out of the 61 individuals slaughtered in 2022, only three of them were carriers… It also matters little to them that their obsession leads to a concerning reduction in the number of ibex in the area, even though they are protected by the Bern Convention.

A long-standing persecution

This policy is not new. Reintroduced into the Alps in the 1970s after having almost disappeared, the Bargy ibex have not stopped being victims of regular slaughtering since 2013, primarily to benefit cheese production in the region. Lives sacrificed in the name of commercial interests… Despite it being possible to capture and test them, the Haute-Savoie Prefecture regularly authorises indiscriminate shots on them. Confronted with the indiscriminate violence of these decisions, we are still fighting to protect these Alpine animals, as we were in 2018 and 2019. Last February, the legal system proved us right, declaring a decree published four years earlier as illegal.

On Tuesday 6 June at 11am, we are hoping that the Grenoble Administrative Tribunal will return a decision in favour of the Bargy ibex. We will continue to rally for them!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Allier, Puy-de-Dôme, Vienne… Badgers spared by the courts

Allier, Puy-de-Dôme, Vienne… Badgers spared by the courts
31.05.2023
Allier, Puy-de-Dôme, Vienne… Badgers spared by the courts
Wildlife

Now 9! Victories are coming one after the other for badgers: referred to by One Voice, the Clermont-Ferrand Administrative Tribunal has just urgently suspended the additional period for underground badger hunting with hounds in these departments. The Poitiers Administrative Tribunal has done the same in Vienne.

Decision after decision, the legal system is confirming that the decrees authorising badger digging in the spring must be suspended. In these three departments, badger cubs and their families will therefore have their lives saved in the weeks and months to come.

In Allier and Puy-de-Dôme, where One Voice were fighting along with FNE Allier and FNE Puy-de-Dôme, the prefectural decrees had authorised digging out from 15 May to 30 June. Even though departmental federations of hunters intervene with support for the prefecture to defend this ‘hobby’ that, each year, leads to thousands of badgers dying in unbearable suffering, the urgent applications judge swept away their arguments. Not only that the decrees had been passed following improper procedures, but the rulings confirm that this type of hunting puts the badger cubs present in the setts in the spring and summer in danger.

In Poitiers, referred to by One Voice, the LPO, and Vienne Nature, the tribunal followed the same reasoning and suspended digging out from 1 June to 30 June in the Vienne Department. In particular, they took into consideration, as we asked them to, that the badger cubs would be seen as ‘young’ as long as they had not reached sexual maturity, so at around one year old.

In the weeks to come, we will continue to lead the fight against the persecution that badgers are victims of. We will renew our appeal in these three departments to obtain a suspension on digging out until September.

Throughout France, other tribunals will be asked to decide in the coming weeks:

on 5 June at 2pm, we will be in Orléans to defend the Eure-et-Loir and Loiret badgers;
on 6 June, we will take action at 11am at the Châlons-en-Champagne Administrative Tribunal to obtain a suspension of the Aube Prefect’s decree, and at 2pm at the one in Bordeaux against the Lot-et-Garonne Prefect’s decree;
on 8 June at 11am, we will be at the Rennes Administrative Tribunal to put a stop to badger digging in Ille-et-Villaine this summer;
and on 13 June at 10am, at the Nancy Administrative Tribunal regarding Meuse.

The Nantes Administrative Tribunal’s decision (hearing on 26 May for a prefectural decree regarding Vendée) is set for around 5 June, and the one for the Lyon Administrative Tribunal (hearing on 31 May regarding Rhône) at the end of the week or the start of the following week.

While One Voice and other associations have recently filed a complaint before the Bern Committee to denounce the treatment given to badgers in France, it is now time more than ever to insist on a pure and simple abolition of underground hunting with hounds!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Animal testing lobby Gircor does not like our report on primates

Animal testing lobby Gircor does not like our report on primates
26.05.2023
Animal testing lobby Gircor does not like our report on primates
Animal testing

On Monday 22 May 2023, One Voice protested outside the University of Strasbourg, where the Silabe primatology centre responsible for a large part of primate trade for animal testing in Europe is based, and presented our recent report on the subject to the public. The next day, Gircor, communication and lobbying body for the animal testing industry, attempted a very flimsy “fact-check” that distorted our words and tried to both discredit us and scare the public.

“Selected excerpts!”: this summarises the perspective on One Voice’s report of those who champion animal testing. Why talk about capturing, cages measuring two square metres in which the macaques spend their lives in laboratories, the disastrous position of France in Europe, or the fundamental problems linked with ‘ethical committees’? They are not even capable of naming One Voice. We should not advertise ourselves…

Forgotten strategies and misrepresentation

Our claims range from an obligation for transparency to helping countries who have met difficulties in cohabiting with macaques. We are also requesting, among other things, a reform on the norms for keeping primates and obligatory research into non-animal methods by laboratories. But amongst all of this, the animal testing lobby only mentions that which scares them the most: the request for a timeline for a complete exit from animal testing.

According to them, our report will encourage “dangerous theories, such as resorting to in humano methods as an alternative to animals”. In reality, the report states that it would be interesting, in addition to alternative routes, to develop clinical research “with the clear consent of supported human subjects… respecting an already well-framed bioethical consideration”. So not much to see. But fear is always a good motivation to justify the suffering that we inflict on others.

Even science is not their forte

In fact, even science does not seem to be these propagandists’ strong point: for them, “the development of ‘humans on a chip’ is more science fiction than science these days”. This is clearly not what the United States National Institute thinks since it has financed the Hesperos business since 2015, which has been proposing various versions of these ‘humans on a chip’ for years, which consist of connecting cell cultures using ‘microfluidic’ systems that reproduce the functions of the different organs in a human body.

But then, our adversaries ask, “should we not consider these ‘humans on a chip’ as sentient beings and therefore ask to ban all research on them?” — No. Incidentally, the French National Academy of Medicine [Académie nationale de médecine] has recently recalled that brain organoids are not mini-brains capable of thinking, but a variety of models that allow us to study different aspects of the brain. Perhaps by dint of advocating for animal testing, those responsible for propaganda in favour of animal testing have lost all capacity for imagination and for epistemological thinking. Or perhaps it is simply a matter of bad faith.

Who can still trust them?

As a matter of fact, the origins of Gircor as an “Interprofessional Group for Thinking and Communication on Research” does not quite fit with the impartial image that they want to give themselves nowadays. Its initial goal, much clearer than the public image it now displays, was to defend and promote “the interests of its members” – meaning laboratories and institutions that use animals.

We therefore understand why it strives to discourage the necessary and inevitable end of primates being used by these laboratories, and avoids spreading our claims, which no one could rationally find abusive.

You can help us

To help us to work towards an end to animal testing, you can sign our petition to demand that we stop using long-tailed macaques in France and Europe as well as the closure of the Silabe Centre at the University of Strasbourg.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Marineland is considering sending its orcas to a dolphinarium in Japan: One Voice is preparing an attack

Marineland is considering sending its orcas to a dolphinarium in Japan: One Voice is preparing an attack
24.05.2023
Marineland is considering sending its orcas to a dolphinarium in Japan: One Voice is preparing an attack
Exploitation for shows

It is with anger that we learnt the news. Marineland in Antibes, who exploited Inouk, Moana, Wikie, and Keijo for their whole lives, has, from the end of 2023 or beginning of 2024 during the annual park closure, started to consider sending them to Japan. With us, demand that this cynical project be abandoned and that the four ‘French’ orcas be placed in a sanctuary where they can finally experience something other than captivity!

Already at the end of 2019, Marineland Antibes had considered sending Inouk, Moana, Wikie, and Keijo to China. Four years later, they have not given up on making one last bit of profit off the back of them. The four whales had even been measured to choose the size of the transport stretchers according to a whistle-blower who contacted us directly and another source in agreement who went through our partners from the Tilikum’s Spirit collective.

Parques Réunidos, who have dozens of parks, this time intend to send them to Japan (even if they deny it – Updated 24.05 at 4pm, Marineland stated in Nice-Matin that they cannot ‘confirm or deny’ this information. And added, in a legislative context strengthened by the law of 30 November 2021 on animal mistreatment, [that they are] “reviewing several possibilities for the relocation” of these animals”), where a water park – the Suma Aqualife Park eventually renamed as Kobe Suma Sea World in the Hyōgo Prefecture – is undergoing construction. And undoubtedly for a more lucrative transaction, they stopped Wikie’s contraception, which suggests a new forced reproduction for this whale who was already inseminated when she was barely 8 years old.

The State abandons orcas

Is this therefore how the government intends to keep their promise to put an end to orcas in captivity between now and 2030? By leaving French parks to get rid of them abroad, where they will continue to be exploited until their last breath, rather than looking to place them in sanctuaries like they promised?

It is unacceptable that Marineland Antibes, who received public help from both the State and communities, are allowed to dispose of French whales as they please, without being accountable to anyone.

Sanctuaries rather than more exploitation!

In partnership with the Whale Sanctuary Project, One Voice has developed a protocol to prepare orcas in captivity for life in a sanctuary. In six months, the Marineland orcas could gain back their muscle mass lost due to inactivity and learn to eat as much as they want, without having to entertain a gallery to be entitled to food. With an in-depth veterinary examination and the necessary care, Inouk, Moana, Wikie, and Keijo could claim a place in a sanctuary, where they would get a taste of partial freedom for the first time. What a joy it would be to see them swimming together off the coast of Canada, in an environment similar to that which was hardly known by their parents, all while receiving the protection and medical care that they have needed their whole lives!

It is still possible to avoid them being imprisoned and relentlessly trained!

We are calling on the State to fund this type of sanctuary, as they should have done from the beginning, and to decide against sending them to other dolphinariums. Aside from our opposition to their relentless exploitation, we are concerned about Inouk, whose health is very poor. Will he even make it to Japan if Marineland insist on subjecting him to such a long commercial journey? We expect the water park to take into consideration the orcas that they are keeping and that they work with us to place them in a sanctuary, respecting their needs. If they were to be sold to Japan, we would never forget this decision and would continue the fight for them, also in Antibes. As will be the case before the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal on 19 June to gain an independent expert assessment on Inouk and Moana.

Along with us, demand that Inouk, Moana, Wikie, and Keijo are cared for by a sanctuary rather than being sent to Japan by signing our petition!

Sign the petition

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

A hearing against scaring brown bears in the Pyrenees at the State Council on 24 May

A hearing against scaring brown bears in the Pyrenees at the State Council on 24 May
23.05.2023
A hearing against scaring brown bears in the Pyrenees at the State Council on 24 May
Wildlife

To protect brown bears in the Pyrenees, we will be at the emergency suspension hearing at the State Council on 24 May at 10:30am. We are asking for the urgent suspension of the 4 May 2023 Ministerial decree that allows prefects to authorise scaring shots aimed at animals in their departments.

Photo: Collectif Hope

There are scarcely 70 individuals living in the Pyrenees. Despite being classified as critically in danger of extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and protected on an international, European, and national level, brown bears are harassed relentlessly in France, at the risk of causing miscarriages for the female bears who are already having so much trouble surviving and getting their young to survive.

Each year, they are subjected to scaring shots authorised by prefectures with the blessing of the Ministries for the Ecological Transition and of Agriculture. To move them away from herds and achieve social peace among farmers, authorities allow bears to be victims of sound-effect shots, causing them stress and the possible separation of the female bears from their young. All of this even though the French National Council for the Protection of Nature [Conseil national de la protection de la nature (CNPN)] has estimated that these violent measures against these animals are much less effective than ensuring effective and proportionate protection of herds…

Measures that we are attacking at the source

In 2022, we were successful in getting all of the prefectural decrees allowing the harassment of brown bears in Ariège cancelled. After this sizeable victory, we are rallying to get the Ministerial decree of 4 May 2023 aiming to allow the scaring of these individuals in the Pyrenees suspended and then cancelled. Because without this Ministerial decree, no prefect would be able to authorise these shots on a local level.

With the decree that we are attacking, the government has confirmed its desire to use drastic measures against bears, even though the viability of their population is not guaranteed, and it is this Ministry that insists on capturing female bears in Eastern Europe to transport them to France! From our side, we are reaffirming our opposition to this cynical policy that pretends to want to revive the population of these threatened animals in our country, to then pursue them with dispersal grenades for up to eight months of the year.

To stop the government from allowing prefectures to authorise bear scaring in our mountain ranges, we will face the Ministry at the State Council on Wednesday 24 May at 10:30am.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Tuberculosis epidemic among monkeys in Mauritius: One Voice and its partners are calling for a ban on this international trade!

Tuberculosis epidemic among monkeys in Mauritius: One Voice and its partners are calling for a ban on this international trade!
22.05.2023
Tuberculosis epidemic among monkeys in Mauritius: One Voice and its partners are calling for a ban on this international trade!
Animal testing

A joint statement from Abolición Vivisección, Action for Primates, One Voice, and PETA relating to a tuberculosis epidemic in a monkey farm in Mauritius, the second biggest country exporting monkeys destined for laboratories.

The tuberculosis (TB) epidemic that is striking currently in a monkey breeding farm in Mauritius is the latest fire started by the global research industry and poisoning tests (sorry: ‘toxicity’ tests). This is added to the numerous other previous ones relating to the capturing and exportation of monkeys destined for laboratories. Any monkey testing positive for tuberculosis in this industrial monkey farm is a sign that there are probably many more, some of which have already been sent to clients, such as the Charles River laboratories in the United States or others in France, Spain, or even the United Kingdom; in other words, all countries that regularly import long-tailed macaques from Mauritius. We, animals rights activists, have been sounding the alarm for years: not only is confining hundreds of monkeys in these overpopulated conditions and contrary to their natural living conditions inhumane, but this inevitably spreads diseases (and thus disrupts research too).

Tuberculosis is a highly contagious disease that can be transmitted between monkeys and humans. Worse, tests are not completely reliable, complicated by false negatives. Due to the severity of the disease and lack of an effective treatment, it is likely that other monkeys, in good health, and those who are kept in the same establishment will be killed along with those whose screening test for tuberculosis is positive. If monkeys are moved between facilities, this would aggravate the problem. We are asking the Mauritian government to stop exporting macaques and our respective governmental agencies to immediately ban the importation of monkeys from Mauritius.

In the last six months alone:

hundreds of monkeys have been seized by Mauritian authorities after having been captured illegally;
several American primate importers have been the subject of a Federal American investigation into the origins of imported monkeys,
long-tailed macaques have been declared to be in danger of extinction,
and Cambodian responsible parties and nationals have been accused of suspected monkey trafficking.

There is only one solution for this situation: in the interest of public safety and compassion towards monkeys, the international trade of primates for laboratories must stop.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

One Voice comes to the rescue for the Doubs birds

One Voice comes to the rescue for the Doubs birds
21.05.2023
One Voice comes to the rescue for the Doubs birds
Wildlife

One Voice is filing a complaint to maintain peace for protected birds in Doubs.

In Doubs, many activities that are toxic for biodiversity have been carried out in recent years on sites protected by a prefetural decree, putting birds belonging to species that are themselves protected in danger. One Voice is filing a complaint.

On 16 March, a helicopter flew over the cliffs of Mount Souvance in Doubs, under the scope of working on a railway below. These round trips bringing crates from the railway to a depot came with the helicopter hovering in front of the cliffs, where peregrine falcons and common ravens in particular nest.

For several hours, these vulnerable animals that desperately need calm in the middle of their nesting period were subjected to the deafening racket of the motor and the gusts of air from the propellers. How can they reproduce and bring up their young successfully in such conditions? And that is without counting the other birds potentially affected, such as European robins, common blackbirds, great tits…

Birds threatened relentlessly

From 15 February to 15 June, it is expressly forbidden by prefectural decree to hover over this protected environment that represents a complete sanctuary for the animals who live there. And the reason that a wildlife association wanted to alert us to this situation is because this is not the first time that these destructive practices have threatened the environment and endangered birds in Doubs. In March 2022, tree, bush, and shrub pruning and cutting had already happened without authorisation.

Although necessary for safety, the operations carried out around the railways should not be done to the detriment of animals. And certainly not in the middle of the reproduction and nesting period, which their survival depends on. Especially as the birds, tested greatly by the massive use of pesticides in the countryside and by climate change, are already hugely threatened. Are we going to lead all species to a point of no return and continue to harass individuals even when they are endangered?

This case is reminiscent of the repeated slaughtering of ibex, themselves protected, in Bargy that we were successful in having recognised as illegal for some of them. Or even the trapping and massacre of field larks, classified on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. And it proves to us, if there is still a need to, that no animal, however threatened or protected they may be, is safe in France.

One Voice is filing a complaint for these birds and their environment to finally be taken into account and to stop being put in danger. In Doubs, as throughout France, we will keep rallying for birds.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

In the United States, animal testing laboratories will finance alternative methods

In the United States, animal testing laboratories will finance alternative methods
19.05.2023
In the United States, animal testing laboratories will finance alternative methods
Animal testing

On 8 May 2023, the State of Maryland in the United States passed a law to create a fund for the development of substitute methods for animal testing. And the State will not be the only one to fund it, since laboratories carrying out experiments on animals will themselves also participate by means of an obligatory annual contribution. One Voice is encouraging the European Union and France to follow this example.

In December 2022, a modification to American law already allowed the sale of medications without them having to be tested on animals.

This time, Maryland is showing the way to a future without animal testing by choosing to finance alternatives and by involving a contribution from laboratories. Based on the number of animals used each year, each laboratory in this small Eastern State of the United States must give an annual contribution which can range from 5000 to 75,000 dollars. And if one of them refuses to pay for their participation in the development of more ethical research methods, they must pay a fine that can be up to 1000 dollars for every day it goes unpaid.

Unfortunately, the effects of this initiative are weakened by the calculation method used by the American Ministry of Agriculture, who has conveniently chosen not to count mice, rats, birds, and fish as victims of animal testing… so the vast majority of individuals concerned.

Insufficient investments in France

In France, where 600 laboratories use 3000 animals per year each on average according to statistics, the creation of such a fund would allow 30 million euros per year to be given to research into substitute methods for animal testing. This amount could supply the FC3R, which would need supplementary financing: created in 2021 and active since 2023, this centre serving to finance ‘replacing’ projects can currently only invest 784,467 euros shared between 19 projects. A very small amount in relation to the 81% of French people in favour of developing alternative methods for experiments inflicted upon animals.

While we have just asked the European Commission to commit in favour of a plan aiming to progressively eliminate all tests on animals, One Voice is encouraging the European Union and France to more seriously finance alternative methods.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

After the repeat conviction and evasion of trainer Gilbert Bauer, what hope is there for Baby?

After the repeat conviction and evasion of trainer Gilbert Bauer, what hope is there for Baby?
17.05.2023
After the repeat conviction and evasion of trainer Gilbert Bauer, what hope is there for Baby?
Exploitation for shows

We are publishing, on the occasion of the latest conviction of Baby’s trainer, recent footage and other older footage that has never been released, of the way in which the African elephant had to survive and the conditions that she was kept in and still has to endure, now that he has transferred her to the Belvédère Zoo in Tunisia. Shameful for the Ministry of Ecology who has deliberately ignored the misery of French circus elephants and, with their inaction, has allowed their endless suffering and exploitation to continue.

One Voice was the source of the first conviction of Gilbert Bauer in 2019, a circus trainer who locked Baby up all year round at the big cat park in Saint-Léger-en-Bray run by his brother, Kid. Both of them lied shamefully to the public, making them believe that the old elephant suffering with her leg was free to roam around the park, when in fact she was being kept shut up day and night in the transport lorry, completely illegally. Bauer then disappeared for a while.

Lying to the public, backstage hell, and, thanks to One Voice, two convictions!

And when we thought we had come across Dumba at the Cirque de Paris in Aubevoye in the Eure Department in March 2020, it was in fact Baby that we had found there, exploited as always. We therefore enlisted a private investigator, documented the show and the living conditions outside of it, and carried out surveillance for several days, during which the entire country closed in on itself and turned its attention to the fate of the animals in travelling circuses.

This investigation was the subject of a detailed report and a complaint to the OFB, who helped, among others, to save Jon and lionesses Patty, Céleste, Hannah, and Marli from this circus. In September 2022, we facilitated Bauer being convicted again, this time for a repeat offence, thanks to a report from the investigator from March 2020.

Bauer, having taken refuge with a film trainer, kept Baby in the lorry and put up barriers around it.

Under pressure put on by our investigation footage and our proceedings in 2019, from 2020, Bauer settled at the property of Muriel Bec, an animal trainer, specifically for wolves for cinema and all kinds of filming. There, the discourse was equally well-established on the so-called ‘ideal’ conditions for keeping Baby in (a pond would have been dug for her, in reality for the view from paying lodges) as on the safety (so no one could approach and ‘risk’ taking incriminating images).

Idealised images for clients and the television. A lifetime of isolation for Baby

The only moments when she had a chance to stretch her legs in an enclosure and could choose her own food from the trees were the days where clients paid for three hours to see this, or when a television channel came to the depths of Loiret to film a reality TV show or an infomercial or documentary.

And she was not given this opportunity between March and October… Outside of the paid seasonal outings, such as at Kid Bauer’s in Parc Saint Léger, Baby hardly left her lorry. Or else to take a few steps, under a small marquee in front of her metal box.

The tarpaulins covering the fences in 2020 were turned into high wooden walls. We have seen the barriers being put up around the lorry, this small tent, and the trainer’s caravan becoming even more solid and impenetrable over time.

The latest conviction prevented him from showing Baby to the public for five years!

From September 2022 and for a duration of five years, Bauer could no longer exploit Baby. And, as indicated in the Ministerial decree of 2011 on travelling establishments (still valid seeing as the Ministry of Ecology has not published the enforcement decrees for the law voted in in November 2021), wild animals cannot be kept under travelling conditions (read: in a lorry) if they are not being shown to the public.

Baby continued to be exploited until at least 31 October 2022. It was still possible to pay for an ‘elephant encounter’. In February 2023, she was still used as the face of the “See you in animal land” imagery.

We have known for a few months that Bauer was looking everywhere for a place to put Baby for the next five years. We are ready to take her in and to place her into a sanctuary, but as always, the authorities have turned a deaf ear. Everything, absolutely everything, that we were planning would have been better than what happened. As always. Maya knows all about it, and Dumba too. Gilbert Bauer’s Machiavellian sleight of hand was to offer Baby to the ‘Tunisian people’ and to thus continue to exploit her at the Belvédère Zoo, a place where we have seen people throwing stones at a crocodile and where a bear is on its last legs. At 38 years of age, Baby will never find peace. And as for Bauer, in reality, he has impunity.

The law against mistreatment, like the ministry that enacted it in France, has abandoned circus animals to a worse fate, from exploitation, subletting, bartering, reselling… We will never give up on them!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Snowball effect against digging out badgers! Departments at the Bern Convention?

Snowball effect against digging out badgers! Departments at the Bern Convention?
17.05.2023
Snowball effect against digging out badgers! Departments at the Bern Convention?
Wildlife

After having won resounding victories in the Haute-Vienne, Tarn-et-Garonne, Manche, Orne, Oise, and Charente-Maritime Departments, One Voice is continuing its extensive legal attack to save families of badgers from being dug out. Although hundreds of individuals have been saved thanks to our actions, the road ahead remains long to reach our goal: for no badger to be dug out this spring.

Time after time, administrative jurisdictions have ruled to suspend the additional period for underground hunting with hounds from May to September. For years, with our investigative footage, we have condemned this type of cruel hunting, particularly for badgers and dogs, as well as it being illegal. And our fight will not stop there: outside of our action on a national level, we have just filed a complaint against France at the Bern Standing Committee along with our partners.

According to the State: if in doubt, let’s make hunters happy!

Digging out is a type of hunting which persecutes families of badgers for hours. In the confusion, the female badgers try to defend their young, sometimes injuring the dogs, before themselves being killed by hunters by being attacked with a knife or gun. The young who survive these assaults die a few days later, left alone in the woodland.

The arguments put forward by the State to defend this practice are swept aside by tribunals: yes, in the spring and summer, badger cubs are still present in the setts. Yes, underground hunting is a ‘blind’ hunt, to quote the Amiens Administrative Tribunal, which does not allow a distinction between the young, adults, or even individuals from a protected species.

And prefectures accept the fact that measures imposed by law are not respected. Numerous decrees for which we have obtained a suspension have been passed even though the State services have no data on badgers; no idea of the number of individuals present in the country and of the alleged damage that is the subject of far-fetched assessments. In Haute-Vienne, the State claimed that the badgers would prey on cattle!

If in doubt, ‘let’s make hunters happy’ seems to be the State’s motto when it comes to hunting.

If, in these six areas, the female badgers and their families have their lives saved in the months to come, the list of prefectures authorising digging out this spring and summer will continue to grow. In ten other departments, the additional period for underground hunting will open from 15 May. And a number of them have not, to this date, published the decrees authorising this practice. A way to ensure that, even if we refer to a judge, hunters have enough time to be able to devote themselves to their hobby.

Our fight continues to obtain a ban on underground hunting

The fight against digging out is a marathon: on 17 May at 10:15am, we will be at the Orléans Administrative Tribunal to obtain a definitive cancellation on two decrees passed in 2021 which authorise additional periods in Indre-et-Loire and Loir-et-Cher.

In the weeks to come, we will increase our action to continue to give badgers a voice and to obtain an urgent suspension on them being hunted during this very delicate time for their young. Emergency interim proceedings have already been set at the Clermont-Ferrand Administrative Tribunal on 30 May at 10am for the Allier and Puy-de-Dôme Departments where we will step in alongside FNE 03 and FNE 63. In Lyon, we will defend badgers in Rhône on 31 May at 10am. In Orléans, on 5 June at 2pm, we will attack the Eure-et-Loir and Loiret decrees.

Other hearings will be announced for the Vendée, Loir-et-Cher, Lot-et-Garonne, Meuse, and also the Aisne Departments, where hunters want to kill young badgers to be able to rifle through the contents of their stomachs in order to prove that they would be weaned by May. With our partner AVES, we will request an immediate suspension on this heinous decree.

Although magistrates appear to already understand that digging out badgers in the spring is illegal, this is far from being the case for our councillors or local authorities: to convince them, continue to sign our petition for the badgers and for a radical reform on hunting!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice