The practice of unearthing – also called « petite vènerie » or underground hunting – is one of the most shameless types of hunting. Hunters participating in these are named « unearthers ». They insert dogs in burrows (mainly of a badger or a fox), whose role is to corner the wild animals, while the human unearthers dig with picks and shovels in the direction of the barking. Then, unearthers pluck out the poor animals from their home with metallic plyers, torture them and finish them off with knives, shovels, guns or give them to the dogs, who shred them to pieces.
Unearthing individuals from their homes to kill them calls onto the most horrible parts of our history and the sadism humanity is capable of.
Badgers are unearthed from May 15th until January 15th, an unusually long amount of time as it is, and foxes and coypu (when the latter is classified as a pest) can be hunted all year round without interruption. Since the majority of unearthings take place between the months of March and June, it very frequently happens that human unearthers find a female fox with her fox cubs, in other words a mother with her younglings, in which case all of them will be destroyed in the aforementioned ways by both humans and dogs alike in a background of roaring laughter and intense language, as can be witnessed in the infamous videos that have gone viral (some of which showed small children who refused to feed fox cubs to the dogs despite the strong insistence of the adults). One might wonder whether their preferred time period to unearth these animals is a coincidence.
According to a survey from SOFRES (2011), 87% of French people want wild animals to be legally protected against bad treatments, on the same basis as domesticated animals. Hunters are thoroughly against it as once we have reached this stage, hunting runs the risk of coming to a long-awaited end.
A very cruel practice
The unearthings takes a very long time. They start either in the morning or in the afternoon and sometimes even last the entire day: the animals remain stuck in their burrow for several hours suffering an incredible amount of stress, trying to survive.
While the unearthers dig, the animals are cornered for several hours in their burrow by the dogs. It often happens that violent fights between the poor animal and the dogs ensue, with dogs pulling the animal with their teethed jaw from all sides. The poor animal’s body becomes a wreck, as his entrails start coming out and his eyes bulge in pain…
But it doesn’t end here. The animals are then pulled out of their burrow by the muzzle, the paw or the neck in a horrendous state with metallic plyers.
Adult foxes and badgers are killed with a knife or a dagger, but the first blow is very rarely the final one, since the animal wants to survive and tries to escape its killers. They struggle and scream for dozens of seconds, which must seem an eternity. Badger cubs and fox cubs are killed, « traditionally » one might add, with shovel blows, the simple heel of their own foot, or they give them to the dogs. Hard to imagine this can exist, but true, and this is considered a normal, enjoyable activity by an active minority.
Additional Comments regarding the Breeding Phase
It is very frequent that badgers share their burrows with several species, as they coexist peacefully with other animals and many of these are often protected species.
Among others:
– forest cats: of whom each year no doubt entire litters of kittens are killed by dogs during unearthings
– otters: a rare, protected species, living with badgers.- a type of bat species on the verge of extinction, which can live in the limestone of badger borrows
– certain types of mustelids: whose numbers are decreasing and who live with badgers
Thereby, unearthings are a nuisance to many different animal species, not just the ones that are being purposefully hunted. They can jeopardise the future of wildlife, since many rare, threatened species coexist with badgers inside the burrows.
Additionally, badgers are a vulnerable species with a weak breeding dynamic, which means that when unearthings take place and badgers are massacred, they will not be able to bounce back for years to come.
Unearthing Contests
Not unlike other shameful practices in history, the sadism of competing for who will kill the most individuals is common practice in the world of unearthing.
While Europe is steadily taking the direction of ethics and ecology, France keeps taking steps backwards, aside from a few exceptions.
During these competitions and in the course of a few days, hundreds of unearthers accompanied by dogs enjoy the questionable « pleasure » of unearthing dozens of burrows. They even go as far as to organise unearthings, that is to say killing, championships. They are evaluated based on their velocity, efficiency and « work » « quality ».
These contests take place in May, when the young are not weaned yet.
Fortunately, these contests have been banned, as they were probably a bit too telling as regards to the nature of the practice and its unnecessary aspect. Hunters strive to be seen as necessary to society, but in that case and given the nature of the activity one would expect them to do it unwillingly, not partying, laughing and creating contests. Nevertheless, these have been replaced by « training days » during which we can only imagine what the programme may be.
The Badger
The badger species is protected in most countries due to its low population numbers and as aforementioned in its inherent vulnerability.
The main reason is also that badgers self-regulate, so there is no reason to hunt them, as they cannot proliferate.
Most European countries have understood the need to protect them: Spain, United-Kingdom, Luxembourg, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, etc.
The badger must nevertheless acquire the status of protected species in France.
CoRAC 