Grave-plundering wild hamsters of Vienna have scored a victory in Europe’s highest court as judges ruled that developers must leave their burrows and surrounding areas undisturbed even if the animals have moved out.
The European hamster is found across a broad swathe of Eurasia, stretching from Belgium in the west to the Altai mountains of Russia in the east, and was once considered a common farmland pest.
In recent decades, however, its numbers in western and central Europe have declined to the point where it was added to the list of critically endangered species last year. Some experts believe it may die out in the wild within 30 years.
Driven out of the countryside by habitat loss, the hamsters have begun to move into cities,