The NFU’s badger eradication scheme has come to an end for another year. No doubt they’ll continue to be persecuted while no-one is looking and all those vigilant wildlife loving people out there will do their best to catch the perpetrators. How effective the cull has been is something being argued over as Lord Krebs rubbishes the NFU’s claims that TB is already dropping where the culls have taken place. The NFU in tern are doing their best to add some sort of positive spin on their claims however when you’re up against someone who’s basing their arguments on solid scientific facts with all the latest data then you need to come up with something good. All I’ll say is you’d have to be significantly challenged in the brain department to believe what the NFU say.
Perhaps that’s it. Farmers are just stupid?
Thing is I know that’s a flippant and somewhat sweeping remark but you’d have to be a moron to believe the nonsense they spout which can only leave me with the alternative and that the whole thing has nothing to do with TB. I’m of course repeating myself, seems like the thing to do in the NFU’s case. Liz Truss likes to say the same old thing over and over again even though her script has been soundly debunked. Like they say, repeat a lie often enough and it’ll become the truth. The only problem the NFU and Defra have is there’s plenty of well informed people out there who see through their lies. And remember, the trials weren’t designed to bring down TB, they were supposed to test free shooting as a method of population reduction, something which seems to be conveniently ignored. And judging by the piles of scrap metal that were once cage traps now festooning the countryside in the South West one wonders what exactly they’re up to. Trevor Cligg the NFU’s representative in Dorset suggested there was no major disruption to the cull. Having spent a large percentage of the last six weeks down there I’d suggest he’s misinformed.
Lord Krebs – NFU are big fat fibbers.
From a personal standpoint I’m just happy to be able to get my own life back to some sort of normality. I’ve worked with some great people, dedicated and unwavering in the face of significant hostility. They’ve been from all sorts of backgrounds, with various outlooks and desires but the single unifying cause we all share is to do the right thing and take action for those that have no voice. I’m feel honoured to be included as one of them and salute each and every one who made an effort.
But there’s no rest for the wicked and the hunting season is now upon us so its time to move on and face the new challenges that await us.
More than just Badgers 
The Fight Goes On
Posted: September 19, 2016 in CommentTags: Badger Cull, bTB, Countryside Alliance, Defra, Gloucestershire, hunt saboteur, Hunting with Dogs Act 2004, NFU, North Cotswolds, Overbury Estate
This is without doubt the busiest time of year for anyone involved in the protection of our wildlife. The disgraceful badger cull is in full swing and the hunts around the country are attempting to train their hounds by killing fox cubs. This of course means that resources are stretched thinly and yet no matter what the challenge there will always be someone there to face the wildlife killers.
Personally I’ve been over in the North Cotswolds badger killing zone. It’s bigger than the original Gloucestershire zone where it all started off and they have a huge target of badgers to kill, second only to the Devon zone. Any kind of target is however completely irrelevant in reality, they haven’t done any real population surveys and they have no idea what 70% of the population is so any targets that Defra set are, pretty much picked out of thin air. The claims by Defra and the NFU that this is a science led policy are of course complete nonsense, the NFU even admitted before the culls that it wouldn’t work. There is no monitoring of efficacy at all, the 6 week maximum cull time has been abandonded in the new zones (purely to allow the killers enough time to get their targets) and TB rates in all the original zones are on the increase.
We need to be very clear here and my own experiences in the field only back this up. There is a wider issue at stake, a bigger picture that is being hidden by the smoke and mirrors of the bTB debate. It is the control of the countryside. The right of the landowning few to do what they want with the environment and the animals that live there regardless of protected status. Badgers are the first, we’ve seen now also Buzzards targeted and this is just the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of areas where I and people like me have been active have been shooting estates or farms with shooting concerns. There are few cattle in sight but always plenty of game bird pens and they will be killing badgers and desperate to kill as many as they can.
On the positive side there have been many successes.
Cage squashed by the forest pixies.
Social media means these travesties of justice can no longer be hidden. There are good people out there doing what they can and making a difference. Huge number of cage traps have been found and neutralised at a time where it is believed they are in short supply. Shooters have been identified and their killing lives put under constant threat of discovery. Hidden cameras have revealed the dirty secrets of the trappers and organisations that like to paint themselves as pillars of the community have been outed. A prime example of this is the Overbury Estate where estate workers smashed the windscreen of a protesters vehicle. Stop the Cull published their details and their Facebook page was flooded with negative comments. The page admin then had to spend several hours deleting them. No matter how hard they try to hide the truth it will come out in the end. There is no justification for this and there never was.
If you’ve got a little time to spare please go to one of the areas and lend a hand. You could save a life, or even many. Drop me a line if you want to get involved in any capacity and I’ll point you in the right direction.
Thanks to TB Free England for some of the images.