Underground badger hunting with hounds: when prefectures stumble blindly
The State never runs out of imagination when it comes to preventing us from condemning illegal acts. In Ille-et-Vilaine, the Prefect has thus passed not one, not two, but three decrees authorising badger digging in the spring and summer. Each one repeals the previous. Without a doubt they hoped we would not be able to keep up. It was a wasted effort: not only have we obtained a suspension on this type of hunting, but the Prefect has found himself lost in this strategy.
While the legal system has massively proven us right and suspended badger digging in numerous departments, a wind of panic is blowing among prefectures, who are getting lost in their own strategies to put obstacles in our way and stop us from saving badgers. This year, Ille-et-Vilaine stood out in particular…
Not one, not two, but three decrees!
The first act: on 1 June 2022, the Prefect authorised an additional period for underground hunting with hounds from 1 to 30 June 2023. The second act: on 5 January 2023, he signed a new decree, revoking the one of 1 June and authorising digging… from 1 to 30 June 2023. We are already having trouble keeping up! The third act: on 16 May 2023, the same again! A new decree revoked the one of 5 January 2023, and authorised underground hunting with hounds from 1 June 2023 to 14 September 2023.
In this labyrinth is hidden a clear strategy in reality: increasing attempts to unsettle us, by hoping that we would lose ourselves in these publications and repeated repeals. It could happen on a misunderstanding!
The joke is on them and the badgers are saved
But these strategies did not work: we attacked these decisions and on 6 June 2023, with AVES, we were victorious. No badger will be dug out in the department this summer.
We were surprised when we received, a few weeks later, a defence brief of several pages long, in which the Prefect defended an act tooth and nail… that he himself had revoked!
We immediately informed the Tribunal of this ludicrous situation. On 18 July, the judge could only note that we had already obtained complete satisfaction, and that the Prefecture was defending a decree that no longer existed…
A lesson that State representatives should learn: these strategies allowing hunters to kill badgers at any cost do not work and do nothing but reinforce our determination to give these animals – including their young – that are massacred in their thousands for the pleasure of a select few a voice.
To save yet more badgers from hunters’ pliers, spades, and guns, sign our petition for the abolition of underground hunting with hounds, and support us!
Translated from the French by Joely Justice