VIDEO: “Kill the cull, not England’s badgers” – Dr Jane Goodall’s message to the Government

‘MASSIVE SUFFERING’: Jane Goodall

BOURNEMOUTH resident and world-renowned primatologist Dr Jane Goodall has sent a powerful message to the Government urging it to abandon the badger cull, warning of “massive suffering”.

The chimpanzee expert and conservationist released a Youtube video following a statement from the Zoological Society of London against the use of badger culling in the control of bovine tuberculosis.

Dr Goodall rose to fame after her landmark study of chimpanzee behaviour in Tanzania and established the Jane Goodall Institute which continues her ground-breaking research.

In her message, the Durley Chine resident said: “The proposed killing will result in massive suffering for the badgers. They are intelligent animals. Like us, they feel apprehension and fear. Like us, they feel pain.

“And even those responsible for the plan have admitted that many animals will not be killed outright but will die maybe days later and many will know terror and great pain.”

Dorset Wildlife Trust was amongst the organisations which signed the online Team Badger petition opposing the badger cull.

The record-breaking petition received 263,000 signatures pledging support against the government policy of killing badgers in a bid to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis in cattle.

Read on...

BY POPULAR REQUEST: Andy Roberts' Badger Videos (2)

Robert Schneck wrote to me asking whether we could possibly post some of the videos that Andy Roberts has done of the badgers in his garden. We emailed Andy who was kind enough to post three of them on Youtube for us. Here is the second one:

GUEST BLOGGER GEORGINA EDWARDS: Fox = bad, badger = good?

It is always a pleasure to welcome a new guest blogger, but this is a special pleasure, because it is the first time that we have had two generations of guest bloggers in the same family. Georgina, who was pivotally involved in the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau during the glory years, is also the mother of bloggo regular Fleur Fulcher.....

Foxes are classified as vermin, they can be legally shot. They steal and eat poultry on a comparatively small scale and occasionally take a weak new born lamb. The cost of their actions to the national economy is negligible.They keep down the rabbit, rat and mouse population and by and large do not seem to upset the natural order.

Badgers are protected, they cannot be interfered with in any way without a permit. They transmit bovine tb. The estimated cost of bovine tb to the economy in the year 2003/04 was £89 million, in compensation to farmers, research etc. Not all of this cost can be laid at the door of the national badger set, but a great deal can . The last official badger population survey was in 1997, when it was estimated that badgers had increased by 77% in the previous decade. Current evidence suggests that this increase has continued. There doesn't seem to be an agreed position as to why this should be, although a farmer friend of mine thinks it is partly due to the increased planting of maize. These tall crops allow badgers to travel along new corridors and also give them an additional food supply well into the autumn.

I live in Mid-Devon, I have a large garden and live across the road from farm and woodland. I could take you out almost any night of the year apart from deepest winter and find you a badger, most nights they go through my garden. Several times a year I have to ring the council to get them to take away a dead badger from the road outside.

I suspect that a great many supposed fox predations of poultry are actually down to badgers, although Mr. Reynard is of course the main offender Until I moved here I had no idea that badgers took as many if not more chickens in some areas, than foxes. Unlike foxes, badgers will tear their way into timber chicken houses and if cornered they can be very unpleasant. My nextdoor neighbour, who incidentally happens to be a local Lib-Dem councillor cornered one in his dressing gown at 3am, (the badger of course being in the garden not in the dressing gown).

Now I come to my real gripe. I have lived in Surrey, Hampshire, Somerset, and Dorset . In all these places I have been visited in my garden by my favourite animal the hedgehog and also sadly seen many of them dead on the road. I moved to Mid- Devon nineteen years ago, during that period I have never seen a live hedgehog. I have see a couple dead on the road and saddest of all found one that had been predated by a badger in my garden .

Having done a bit of research before writing this to ensure that I had my facts correct, I am horrified to learn that badgers are not only wiping out the hedgehogs, but are endangering bumblebees and ground nesting birds.

Now I would hate to live in this country without badgers, but would someone explain to me why badgers are protected and foxes considered vermin.

MYSTERY BADGER MUTILATION IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE

This came in yesterday:

In past week we’ve had three badger kills in Glos which people cannot explain – they look like they’ve been precisely sheared in half and just fallen from the sky – no tracks, no blood, and no sign of the other half. Those who’ve seen them feel cat is a possibility perhaps, and so too is human, but it’s a mystery, even for the county badger specialist. I’m awaiting a pic from one of the locations.

Needless to say we shall be awaiting further developments with baited breath