An association for the defense of animals is fighting to ban the hunting of badgers, deemed “cruel” and “barbaric”. It is organizing awareness-raising actions on this Monday, May 15, the date on which badger hunting restarts in around a third of French departments.
On the Pont-de-Claix market, south of Grenoble, volunteers from the association for the protection of wild animals (ASPAS) invite passers-by to take an interest in badgers, to encourage their protection.
“It is not edible, not considered a pest, and yet it is hunted for recreation”explains Guillaume Huguenin.
The ASPAS activist continues his presentation: “It’s a particularly cruel hunt. The little dogs are let loose in the burrows. They will corner the badgers there, and on the surface, the hunters take them out with shovels and pickaxes to kill them”says Guillaume Huguenin.
The badger population is estimated at 150,000 individuals in France. The animal is not protected and it can be hunted almost all year round, because in addition to the classic hunting season from September to February, the prefects can authorize another complementary hunting campaign from May 15.
The departments of Isère and Haute-Savoie each have ten crews capable of carrying out this badger hunt, called “underground venery”.
10,000 to 12,000 badgers would thus be killed each year, at the national level.
“The badgers come out of the burrow from mid-April and, from May 15, we come to persecute them and potentially kill them. So we are trying to abolish this additional period and ideally give protected status to badgers, which is already the case in other European countries”, continues Guillaume Huguenin.
ASPAS has therefore launched a World Badger Day in 2022. And for many years, the association has been challenging additional hunting permits in court. According to a 2018 Ipsos survey, this method of hunting would be considered by 83% of those questioned as “violent and unnecessary”.
“Things are changing. ASPAS launched a petition last year which reached 100,000 signatures and the subject was brought to the Senate. We feel that public opinion is sensitive to this issue. Afterwards, there is still about a third of French territory where these additional periods apply”adds the activist.
Still, the legislative fight is proving difficult for animal rights activists. The petition having reached 100,000 signatures, the Senate had to deal with it. The Economic Affairs Committee commissioned a report, delivered at the end of March 2023. After studying the petitions, hearing the various stakeholders and observing an underground hunting session, the rapporteur estimated “that the badger, whose populations are in good health, must continue to be subject to regulation because of the significant damage it causes to infrastructure and the risk of development of bovine tuberculosis”.
In his report, the parliamentarian “calls for the development of scientific knowledge on badger populations and hopes that hunters will make further progress in the training and control of practitioners as well as in adapting their hunting method to changes in their environment”.
In Isère, the badger will have a little respite this year. The prefecture has not authorized an additional hunting period for the 2022-2023 season.
