Weird but true, France is being threatened with a €17 million penalty if it doesn’t clean up its act and come up with a strategy to save the European hamster, one of the continent’s most threatened species.
Last week the European Commission, the executive branch of the 27-member European Union, gave France a two-month deadline or else it would have to cough up the whopping fine for failing to comply with the Habitats Directive (yes we’re in Eurobabbleland here) to prevent the rodent’s extinction.
The Directive requires all member states to designate sites for conservation and to protect various listed species.
The little fellah at the centre of the warning is the Cricetus cricetus better known as the “great hamster of Alsace” or the black-bellied Hamster, and as one of its name suggests …