Latest News
The Importance of checking Road Casualties, especially in Springtime.
A few days ago a member was driving fairly close to home and spotted a dead badger on the roadside. A check revealed that it was a lactating sow and activity at a nearby sett that he was aware of, meant there could be cubs underground BUT how many and how old.
The answer was to set up a trail camera along with food and water, and the outcome exceeds all expectations; three healthy looking cubs and the bonus is that there’s an adult at the sett as well to help them through their formative months once the support feeding becomes unnecessary.
Very well done to all concerned.
View a short compilation video here.
This is an edited version of a Wild Justice press release regarding their 2020/2021 Petition.
More detail can be found on the Wild Justice website.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Our petition to end the shooting of Badgers has now passed 100,000 signatures. Thank you for all your support.
This means it will eventually be debated in Westminster Hall by backbench MPs and a government minister will have to respond. Petitions of this type rarely, of themselves, change government policy but they keep up the pressure for change. We would like to increase that pressure and will continue to promote the petition to gain more signatures right up until midnight on 24 March when it closes.
Support for the petition has come from right across the UK but has been particularly strong in those areas where Badger culling is taking place such as the southwest counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset and Gloucestershire, and also in Derbyshire where plans for Badger vaccination were well-advanced but have been disrupted by government pushing ahead with culling.
Why we care so much:
1. We care about Badgers and over 20,000 were shot in 2020, and in 2019 and DEFRA plans allow for tens of thousands more to be killed in the future. This is a massive government-sanctioned assault on a protected species.
2. We care about farmers and cattle too, and we see the Badger cull as a distraction from the main means of controlling bovine TB in cattle: better testing, movement restrictions and vaccination as recommended by a recent report by Sir Charles Godfray FRS.
3. Shooting Badgers is cruel - this government has never stuck to the recommendations of an expert group in 2014 that 95% of shot Badgers should die within 5 minutes of being shot - the usual figure is always around double that level and some Badgers take more than 10 minutes to die. We believe that monitoring is inadequate.
How you can help:
1. If you haven't signed this petition yet then please consider signing now, here is the link - click here.
2. Ask your friends and colleagues to sign too please. You could forward this email to them or send them this link to the petition https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/333693
3. If you use social media such as Twitter, Facebook etc then spread the word there please. By the way, our Twitter handle is @wildjustice_org
4. Please note that the petition can be signed by anyone resident in the UK (not just in England, even though this is an English cull) and also by UK citizens resident abroad.
Thank you for your support
Wild Justice (Directors: Mark Avery, Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay).
Article from THE GUARDIAN.
WILDLIFE GROUPS DEPLORE LATEST BADGER CULL FIGURES
Shropshire Badger Group condemns the latest Government figures revealing that 3580 badgers were shot in Shropshire during the unscientific cull started last Autumn. The true figure will be nearer 4000 when parts of north and eastShropshire are added though referred to as a Staffordshire zone.
That’s 70% of the badgers across much of the county. So nearly four thousand badgers will have died, despite clear evidence that very few badgers carry bovine TB and in almost all cases of cattle infection the animals have caught it from other cattle.
The Group said “Many farmers have been misled into believing that killing badgers will stop bTB in their herds, but pretty much as many cattle were sent to premature slaughter last year by farmers across England, as in 2012 when the present badger culling policy began. In just one recently published paper, the‘Badgers Found Dead Study’ the figures show that badgers are not a reservoir for bovine TB but like many other animals, both wild and domesticated such as sheep and deer - they’re just another spillover host”.
Jim Ashley, Chairman of Shropshire Badger Group firmly believes that“English farmers have been totally failed by the Government’s handling of bovine TB because of their insistence on using the 70 year old SICCT, skin test, introduced just after WW2 as a screening test for farmers who wished to sell safe milk from the farm gate. The test is notoriously inaccurate, sometimes no better than 50% reliable, but that means that farmers unnecessarily lose morehealthy cattle because infected animals are hidden, silently spreading the disease through their own and neighbours’ herds.
Meanwhile Vets are not allowed to routinely use the better blood testing methods such as Gamma Interferon* and more recently Actiphage* both of which provide much more specific and accurate results. Instead, our farmersstill have to rely on a test that was launched at about the same time as the Spitfire went into service and look where ‘flight’ has gone since then.
The situation has been made worse by the Government’s painfully slow development of a cattle vaccine. Trials of the vaccine have only just begun despite it being in development and promised on and off for the past 20 years.
Despite Defra’s most recent cynical claim that ‘culling would effectively be phased out after 2022’, badger culling in Shropshire will take place for at least a further 3 years, with thousands more badgers doomed to be shot, some suffering a lingering and agonising death. Meanwhile, costs to taxpayers and heartachefor farmers will continue to rise because culling barely affects disease rates in cattle.”
Sharon Davies-Culham, Shropshire Badger Vaccination Project Co-ordinator said “We are horrified and sickened by the numbers of badgers killed in Shropshire under this expensive, discredited policy. We have been working successfully with independently minded farmers and landowners across the County to vaccinate badgers against bovine TB. This approach is cheaper andmore effective than culling, conferring immunity on unborn cubs. Our service has been available free or at cost, using trained and dedicated volunteers committed to help farmers fight this awful disease. Other counties run similar schemes, with several directly funded by Defra! So given there is an alternative, we fail to see why culling is necessary at all in Shropshire.”
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Newer more reliable tests are now available but not mandated in England but that they are widely used in Wales which has started to cut down on the massive hidden reservoir in cattle there. Short term it does mean that the number of cattle going to slaughter will rise (because there are so many false negative results in the national herd at present), but compensation will continue to be paid at rates frequently published and updated to market prices by Defra. Testing and collection of cull cows, as well as slaughtering of bTB positive animals is paid for by Defra (i.e. the tax payer)
Badgers culled despite two studies casting doubt on TB link, say vets Click HERE to read.
EU fine the UK in excess of 3.5 million euros for failing to make progress in eradicating bTB
That seems a significant fine but when you realise that the grants provided to the UK by the EU over the past few years amount to many hundreds of millions of euros, it seems like a drop in a very large ocean of cash.
A degree in mathematics might help to understand the fine detail but it looks like there’s been a monumental waste of money which someone needs to explain.
Click on the link to read the article.
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Interview with the Vet, Dick Sibley, about his research project on bovine TB
In an interview with an Irish journalist, Dick Sibley explains the project he devised and managed on a large cattle farm in Devon to identify and eradicate the cause of persistent bTB breakdowns over the previous 10 years resulting in him eventually achieving TB free status.
It’s a fascinating chronicle of his thought processes, how they were applied to the problem and how the entire country could be dealt with in the same way.
To enjoy and be educated click the link.
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The Save Me Trust challenges Secretary of State, George Eustace to explain the extension of badger culling
After the Government announcement earlier in the year, that badger culling was to be phased out and now the recent licensing of 11 new cull areas, The Save Me Trust, fronted by Brian May and Anne Brummer, supported by Chris Packham, is seeking a Public Enquiry into Badger Culling along with a full audit of the amount of tax payers money being spent on what is a very dubious policy.
To read the full article click the link.
https://www.save-me.org.uk/save-me-trust-our-work/badger/969-badger-cull-2020
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A Government Petition set up by Wild Justice, supported by The Badger Trust, calling for an immediate end to the shooting of badgers.
Wild Justice is an organisation involving Mark Avery, Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay and, supported by The Badger Trust, they have created a Government Petition calling for the immediate ban of shooting badgers and the petition must have 100,000 signatures if it is to be considered for debate in Parliament.
The petition at the moment (30th September 2020) contains almost 48,000 signatures and it will run until 24th March 2021which sadly will do nothing to save the many thousands of badgers that will die during the next few months.
There is more than enough time to secure the remaining signatures if the petition is circulated to as many family, friends and associates who share our joint concerns for the protection and welfare of badgers.
The link will provide more details about the background to the petition with a link at the end to open the petition.
https://www.brockbase.com/post/save-badgers-from-controlled-shooting-sign-the-wild-justice-petition
If you wish to access the petition directly, the link is:-
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/333693
This is an edited version of a Wild Justice press release regarding their 2020/2021 Petition.
More detail can be found on the Wild Justice website.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Our petition to end the shooting of Badgers has now passed 100,000 signatures. Thank you for all your support.
This means it will eventually be debated in Westminster Hall by backbench MPs and a government minister will have to respond. Petitions of this type rarely, of themselves, change government policy but they keep up the pressure for change. We would like to increase that pressure and will continue to promote the petition to gain more signatures right up until midnight on 24 March when it closes.
Support for the petition has come from right across the UK but has been particularly strong in those areas where Badger culling is taking place such as the southwest counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset and Gloucestershire, and also in Derbyshire where plans for Badger vaccination were well-advanced but have been disrupted by government pushing ahead with culling.
Why we care so much:
1. We care about Badgers and over 20,000 were shot in 2020, and in 2019 and DEFRA plans allow for tens of thousands more to be killed in the future. This is a massive government-sanctioned assault on a protected species.
2. We care about farmers and cattle too, and we see the Badger cull as a distraction from the main means of controlling bovine TB in cattle: better testing, movement restrictions and vaccination as recommended by a recent report by Sir Charles Godfray FRS.
3. Shooting Badgers is cruel - this government has never stuck to the recommendations of an expert group in 2014 that 95% of shot Badgers should die within 5 minutes of being shot - the usual figure is always around double that level and some Badgers take more than 10 minutes to die. We believe that monitoring is inadequate.
How you can help:
1. If you haven't signed this petition yet then please consider signing now, here is the link - click here.
2. Ask your friends and colleagues to sign too please. You could forward this email to them or send them this link to the petition https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/333693
3. If you use social media such as Twitter, Facebook etc then spread the word there please. By the way, our Twitter handle is @wildjustice_org
4. Please note that the petition can be signed by anyone resident in the UK (not just in England, even though this is an English cull) and also by UK citizens resident abroad.
Thank you for your support
Wild Justice (Directors: Mark Avery, Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay).
