Badgers - and this Disreputable Government

The last week has been terrible for badgers, and things are only going to get worse:

Tuesday 26th August: British Government quietly release plans to kill up to 1876 badgers in Somerset and Gloucestershire this year.

Friday 29th August: Badger Trust high court legal challenge against the badger cull is overturned.

Tuesday 2nd September: Badger vaccination projects are announced to be taking place around the country.

I don't approve when I see a story of vaccination being used to bury the real news of the imminent and unjustifiable murder of badgers.

Make no mistake, our nation is in uproar about what is being done in Somerset and Gloucestershire. More than 300,000 people signed Brian May's anti cull petition in 2013, but the cull continued. It claimed the lives of almost 2000 badgers, cost around £7,000,000 and the independent expert team hired to study the results described it as 'ineffective and inhumane'.

At this point, any sensible person would look at the overwhelming scientific evidence against the cull, the view of their own expert panel, the will of the people, and accept that they had made a mistake.

But not this government. Instead they fired the expert panel, and told the contractors to get the guns back out.

This cull is an abomination, which the government are pursuing at all costs and sweeping deftly under the media radar. Many still do not know there is to be a badger cull this year. It is up to each of us to share the truth. Please share the news of this imminent cull with friends and family:

http://www.networkforanimals.org/news/2014-badger-cull-given-go-ahead 

 

A Haunting Mystery

My interest in railways and my research into the great days of steam and the 'Big Four' rail companies pre-nationalisation sometimes unearths some disquieting tales. This is no exception.

At 5:20am on 13th October 1928 a train crash occurred in Charfield, Gloucestershire. A goods train was being shunted off the main line to make way for an oncoming Leeds-Bristol mail express. However, the manoeuvre was not quite completed before the express train arrived, going at speed, and collided with the goods train. The momentum of the engine carried it under the bridge, but the passenger carriages piled up against it. The situation was made worse by the fact that the carriages were gas-lit, and the accident caused the gas cylinders to rupture and the gas to ignite. The four wooden carriages rapidly became an inferno, and the heat from the blaze impeded rescue efforts. 16 people were killed. All were identified expect for a boy aged around 12 and a girl of about 6, both badly burned.

The ticket collector who survived the crash remembered seeing two children board the train alone at Gloucester. He said that they were wearing school hats and described them as young persons of "reasonable means". Part of a breast pocket of a school blazer was found bearing a school motto, Luce Magistra, as well as two 9-inch-long shoes and part of a sock with the initials CSSS. Tailors and shoemakers over a large area were canvassed without result. Schools, churches and advertisements yielded not a single clue.

Surely someone was waiting for them at the first and only stop? No result there. No relative, friend, teacher or neighbour reported or knew them. Ultimately they were buried, the railway company taking responsibility for the formalities.

Of some curiosity was the fact that an unknown lady dressed in black used to visit the memorial to the crash victims in St James’s Church, Charfield (also the site of the children’s graves) for many years.

There are numerous theories about these children: one of these that they were illegitimate children of a royal dynasty whose existence (and deaths) had to be hushed up. Unlikely? There has never been a definitive answer and this haunting mystery remains.....

Don't Cull, say Trusts

While the first badger culls have been carried out in Somerset and Gloucestershire, The Wildlife Trusts continue to vaccinate badgers on their nature reserves and, with farmers, on surrounding land.

The cull, claimed to be the best way to reduce TB in cattle (bTB), is opposed by wildlife organisations, scientists and the public. More than 300,000 people supported a government e-petition against culling. Although sympathetic with farmers, The Wildlife Trusts are firmly against the cull and will not allow culling on their land.

Two years ago Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust began to vaccinate badgers in high bTB risk areas to demonstrate its practicality. There are now 13 Trusts either vaccinating badgers or raising funds to do so. Some are vaccinating in the zone between high and low risk areas - the 'firewall' approach.

They will continue to press for greater emphasis on badger vaccination. But the long-term goal is the development of a cattle vaccine alongside other measures to reduce bTB such as improved farm biosecurity, restrictions on livestock movements and breeding genetic resistance in cattle.

For the latest news and to donate to vaccination projects visit
wildlifetrusts.org/badgers-and-bovineTB  

Westward Ho

Ros and I will be travelling tomorrow to Portishead, to the west of Bristol. We are looking forward to spending some relaxing time with my wife's family over a long weekend. Although birdwatching is on the agenda I am aware that I will be located not so far away from the badger killing fields of Gloucestershire. I acknowledge and support the efforts of our cull protestors. If I can, I will join you for one night....

The Shameful Badger Cull

The groundswell of public opinion against the badger cull and its probable extension, gains momentum. Secretary of State for the Environment, Owen Paterson, wants to extend the cull because marksmen failed to kill the target proportion of badgers, falling well short of their target of killing 70% of badgers within the cull zones. Just recently we have learned that 708 badgers were killed in Gloucestershire out of an original target of 2,900 badgers. And, as we all know, according to Mr Paterson: "the badgers moved the goalposts". In making such a ludicrous statement DEFRA scored an embarrassing own goal. Had it not been for the emergency deployment of cages to trap and kill these poor animals when it became obvious that shooting wasn't working, then the kill figures would have been far lower. The failure of the pilot culls to reach their targets should not be used as an excuse to extend shooters' licences for three additional weeks.

There has been little if any monitoring of the shooting, whether or not badgers shot were killed cleanly. Any number of badgers could have been painfully wounded and fled underground to die. We will never know. Moreover, DEFRA did not include testing of badgers for bovine TB as part of the cull, even though testing of badger carcasses would have been easy enough to do and experts urged it.

And now Owen Paterson is considering gassing whole families of badgers in their setts as a possible future 'tool' for killing our remarkable animals. According to a new YouGov opinion poll 58% of the public would not support the government authorising badger gassing. Indeed, three years ago prime minister, David Cameron, famously called gassing "very cruel". Gassing is excluded as a method of killing species listed by the Convention on the conservation of European wildlife and natural habitats (Bern convention) which includes badgers.

Mr Paterson's conduct throughout this hapless episode has resulted in him becoming little more than a laughing stock, amazing when our Government seeks to play a leading role in matters concerning biodiversity protection and wildlife crime.

It's time the Government got serious about protecting our wildlife and our farm animals and left our badgers alone.