Foxes, Badgers (a supposed "protected" species), Hedgehogs and domestic pets are being poisoned in the UK

 I would like to make something absolutely clear and I am not too concerned as who hates me over it or doesn't. My concern is the study and protection of carnivores in the UK that have been hunted, shot, snared, ripped apart and consumed by hunt dog packs and more.

Humans in this country (I say "humans" since men, women and children have been involved in this) have managed to make the bear extinct. The wolf extinct. The lynx extinct and by the 18th century it looked as though the only four legged animal to chase, the fox, was going that way. Even in the late 1800s the 'sportsmen' of the day feared that their 'sport' (the fox) was going to die off (as noted in The Red Paper) and so until the 1930s thousands of foxes were imported each year FOR hunting (remember this hunting was for "vermin control not sport" yet sport is ALWAYS used by these people).

From descriptions the pro hunt faction give you would assume, and they have faked the photos to further this belief, the fox was a coyote or wolf sized predator rather than a cat sized canid that eats in the same location as hedgehogs, cats and badgers.

Foxes there has never been a halt in the persecution of even though the law states that farmers may only "deal with them" where livestock is at risk....not heard of any fox packs taking down cattle or horses in the UK.

The badger, a supposedly protected species, is still persecuted by badger baiting and hunting and in some areas we know local police HAVE turned a blind eye to this and tend to avoid any confrontation with those involved. When 4-6 adult badgers are found "every week" on a short stretch of road and the carcasses are sold on the taxidermists who do not ask too many questions, the red flags pop-up.

In the UK you can go into any supermarket and just pick up mouse/rat or "rodent" (they are all the samething) poison. People tend not to understand or read instructions and I have even been told by council pest controllers that they turned up at a house and found rodent poison around the front door. We know hedgehogs are dying from these poisons as well as slug pellets. Both should really be outlawed as dangers to the environment and wildlife.

We have had, curiously enough in pro hunt support areas, pet cats poisoned. The main target was probably a fox or badger and that a pet or hedgehog is made very ill or dies is of no concern to the people putting the bait out (freely available paracetamol is the current choice I hear).

Paracetamol in (usually) sausage meat as well as rat poison in meat will be picked up by badgers and foxes both adult and cubs. When, on the same day and close geographical proximity, two young fox cubs, unmarked but out in a prominent position in a garden and close to a front window are found we need to know HOW they died. Disease? Poison? Or "natural causes"?

This is why I am TRYING but FAILING with wildlife rescues to find out what weak or sick cubs they have rescued have been diagnosed with. In a way their not helping is aiding and abetting the pro hunt groups because we need to know -over stressing the point maybe- which might be possible poisonings, which toxo or some other virus or whatever and which are road-kill.

To date EVERY rescue has been obstructive in one way or another and that is very much akin to friendly fire though I am not that gracious -you keep silent then you aid the pro hunt faction.

DEFRA or the Animal Plant Health Adency needs to look into these deaths -a fox or badger hit by a car are, sadly, not rare and they can be identified easily by circumstances. Four cubs found dead not far from the other two cubs noted above raised more suspicions. DEFRA wwere not interested and the APHA COULD perform post mortems IF the person who found the carcasses transported them across the city to a vet. End of story. The person could not and SHOULD NOT have been asked to transport dead animals in a car. The council street cleaning team could pick up the animals to take for incineration but why not to a vet for PM?

This is something I am working on but I appear to be working alone. I am only one person with limited funds but I will keep on trying but unless all those thousands of people on fox groups contact their MPs and kick up a fuss about freely available poisons and the need to carry out PMs on suspicious fox or badger then nothing can be achieved.

One man cannot do much but many can make people take notice.