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

A hunting pen in Loire-Atlantique for killing animals in total privacy

A hunting pen in Loire-Atlantique for killing animals in total privacy
15.05.2023
A hunting pen in Loire-Atlantique for killing animals in total privacy
Wildlife

In Loire-Atlantique, there a few hunting pens that exist on our map… One of them is one of the smallest we know of. Having been warned, we thus decided to go there.This enclosed place, created around twenty years ago to kill animals among hunting friends and clients, is not worried about the presence of the neighbours “training dogs” to massacre animals or even organising foxhunts. Organised animal cruelty on 60 hectares of non-compliance, approved by the authorities.

At the start, the property was home to a farm of wild boars. But the owner had to close it, forced to by a legal decision (that is what he said anyway, but an intervention by Nos Viventia into this enclosure a few months ago leaves us wondering about this). So, for more than ten years, the power struggle of the locals continued with the owner. Despite regulations banning the possibility of opening such a place (size of the enclosure, protected forest that should allow the animals to pass through, danger to neighbours, and open conflict due to building permits…), the authorities seem to have yielded to all of the owner’s demands. The fences are not regulation size? Never mind, they still authorise the deal!
Even the pipes, small ditches between the ponds, and small streams passing from one property to another, have been blocked by mesh to ensure that no animal survives, something which is normally prohibited.

Because in France, we have a sneaking suspicion that each time hunters ask for something, prefectures let them have it. The lobby is powerful. And how many prefects or parliamentarians are themselves hunters…

The footage from April 2022 that our investigators brought back even shows that in the middle of a clearing there is a small bird farm. Whether it be pheasants or partridges, they are released according to their desires and for ‘shooting sessions’ on live animals. Birds that have not even learnt to live without humans there to feed them, who would never have flown up high or far, as we showed in our previous investigations into these types of breeding farms.

Nature has been pillaged to create this pen. Deer and other woodland animals in the nearby area are often found in traps. A small mound makes one of the fences lower on the outside of the property than on the inside. Animals can therefore easily go into the park but can find it difficult to get back out. The blocked pipes prevent small animals from getting from one pond to the next.

And twice, a few weeks ago, the neighbours protected a large deer that came to find refuge at their house from the hunters and their hounds. And each time, they have to remove the dogs and put off the hunters who are trying to get into their home to kill these splendid animals. A situation that has become unbearable.

Finally, the new owner of the premises has tried to extend their land by trimming their neighbours’ land in order to reach the minimum area for a hunting pen… A scandal that is all the more concerning as the slightest bullet ricocheting would also risk these neighbours’ lives!

Take a look at our infiltration investigations into penned hunting in Bourgogne, Île-de-France, and Sologne.
Sign our petition0073 to ban penned hunting and for a radical reform on hunting!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

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!
Wildlife

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

Underground hunting with hounds: One Voice at work to defend foxes and badgers

Underground hunting with hounds: One Voice at work to defend foxes and badgers
07.05.2023
Underground hunting with hounds: One Voice at work to defend foxes and badgers
Wildlife

Every year, numerous animals are hunted into their burrows, including when their young are down there. During the spring, hundreds of foxes and badgers continue to be victims of underground hunting with hounds because they are considered as ‘pests’ or targeted by decrees opening additional hunting periods; One Voice once again opposes this cruel practice.

Animals cornered in their burrows by dogs that are forced to go down underground, innocent victims grabbed by metal clamps and ruthlessly killed… We have been speaking out for years against the cruel practice of underground hunting with hounds. Like us, more than eight in ten French people are asking for it to be banned for all animals.

Badger cubs in danger

To blow the monstrosity of this kind of hunting wide open, we have taken considerable risks by infiltrating among diggers. The footage that our investigators have brought back from their infiltration is chilling.

The badgers, rooted out from their shelters after endless moments of terror, are slaughtered with sadistic joy. Including the badger cubs, very much present in the setts and still dependent on their parents in the spring. It is for these young animals, who are killed in total violation of the Environmental Code, that we are still fighting this year to get the prefectural decrees authorising an additional hunting period suspended for this season. This would be ideal for the animals from protected species who sometimes hide in the badgers’ setts and who are also threatened with death.

Foxes: victims of endless persecution

Wrongly considered as pests, foxes can meanwhile be hunted down underground all year round. Mistakenly
unpopular, these animals that are in fact intelligent, social, and essential for biodiversity are hunted down day and night, killed by any means with no limit on cruelty and sometimes even hung. And it is not unusual for traps aimed at small canines to make them collateral victims.

There are many more animals considered as ‘pests’, labelled as a species likely to cause damage and hunted relentlessly. We are defending them too, and are fighting to put an end to this massacre of carrion crows and rooks, or even wood pigeons, least weasels, beech martens, or mustelids.

We have been already making a start for several months on the gargantuan task of defending these animals because prefectures and the Ministry for the Ecological Transition are preparing a decree to go over all species classified as likely to cause damage department by department. These animals will then be in great danger for the next three years, subjected to endless hunting. We plan to attack this decree at the State Council as soon as it is published.

On the weekend prior to 15 May (International Badger Day, which we are participating in) we are organising actions to raise awareness throughout France to say no to underground hunting with hounds for badgers and foxes, at tribunals as well as on the streets. Join us!

• Le Pailly,13 May: https://www.facebook.com/events/930412554835689/
• Limoges, 13 May: https://www.facebook.com/events/644482667497499/
• Metz, 13 May: https://www.facebook.com/events/764307091856904/
• Nantes, 13 May: https://www.facebook.com/events/1286433678922809
• Nice, 13 May: https://www.facebook.com/events/254304773766781/
• Rouen, 13 May: https://www.facebook.com/events/993892621599981
• Troyes, 13 May: https://www.facebook.com/events/613390327125428

 

• Bordeaux, 14 May: https://www.facebook.com/events/1264027404254182
• Gap, 14 May: https://www.facebook.com/event…

• Caylus, 19 May : https://www.facebook.com/event…

• Aix-en-Provence, 20 May: https://www.facebook.com/events/805061284293925/
• Amiens, 20 May: https://www.facebook.com/events/760169785588594
• La Rochelle, 20 May: https://www.facebook.com/events/950134353003200/
• Flers, 27 May : https://www.facebook.com/events/613200817187162/

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

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
Wildlife

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