Traffic on the regional SNCF line linking Nantes to Châteaubriant was interrupted almost all day on Tuesday April 16. The stopping of the tram-train from 9 a.m.
was due neither to a technical accident nor to a social movement but to the irruption of badgers under the track. The population of these burrows has increased at least fivefold over the last 40 years, according to the French Association of Hunting Crews. "It is a scourge for railway networks because badgers are very fond of dikes to dig their burrows. However, these small tunnels can reach up to 100 meters in length and weaken – sometimes quite dangerously – the shoulders of railway tracks," says one enthusiast based in Haute-Marne. For more than ten years, the group has employed wildlife regulators responsible for preventing the intrusion of animals onto its network. And if the question is, 'what should be done about the badgers?', the answer is 'nothing.'