We lose an estimated 55-65,000+ badgers on the roads each year, add to that thousands killed "for fun" or "taxidermy to order" and some 33,627 have been 'legally' killed in 2023 based on no scientific evidence. We are pushing the badger to the point of extinction after it defied that final step for centuries.
We have a similar if not higher number of foxes dying each year and, again, roads take the largest number but shooters, snarers or people who just do not like wildlife take a huge number. We also know that fox cubs as well as adults suffer a high mortality rate from injury and illness/disease.
When I joined the RSPB in the 1970s one of the first things I was asked was whether I'd care to "volunteer for the annual bash" and I was confused until it was explained that seagulls and other birds are an awful nuisance so each year their nests and eggs were destroyed by the RSPB.
You cannot claim to be looking after the environment and wildlife when you are paying people to go out and kill other species that "are not the pretty ones we like"
I do not care for the addition to this article -ex cricketer Ian Botham showing a total lack of any brain matter (he is, like other celebrities of course, someone who likes the prestige of the "country set" like Alan Titchmarsh) on how we need to discuss humane ways to kill foxes. That is typical pro hunt talk because they must have something to kill.
Also we do know that RSPB contractors in the past have 'accidentally' disposed of badgers.
If you are an RSPB supporter, sponsor or donator then right now (if you never knew before) you should be hanging your head in shame.
Trying to save and preserve wildlife IS a war and when you find that the people also supposed to be on your side are anti-wildlife it gets harder. But idiots like Botham, Titchmarsh, Clunes, etc as well as organisations such as the RSPB need to have it made clear to them that enough is enough. The RSPCA is already withdrawing support for sick and injured wildlife.
When will people start pushing back -extinction is forever
The RSPB is employing people to kill birds and foxes and hide it from the public, The Telegraph can reveal.
The charity has been seeking contractors to shoot foxes and catch crows using controversial traps which use live birds as bait and instructing that it must be done “away from public view”.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has even said that in “exceptional circumstances” it will allow wounded foxes to be hunted using dogs.
Lord Botham has said that methods used by the “eco-left charity, which constantly chastises countryside folk for what they do” shows the need to “move away from the Disney view of the countryside in which we pretend that tough choices on controlling predators can be avoided”.
The RSPB has regularly clashed with shooting and countryside organisations over the management of predators and has been accused of unfairly accusing gamekeepers of wrongdoing.
The instructions have emerged as part of a tender for “an appropriately qualified and experienced contractor to undertake the lethal control of foxes and crows” in order to protect curlews, which are ground-nesting birds.
The documents, seen by The Telegraph, say that the contractor is expected to “provide and to run Larsen traps, away from public view, to remove territorial crows that have learned behaviours to target curlew eggs and chicks”.
It says that the traps should be “baited with a territorial call bird” and emphasises that they should “be positioned in an area which is hidden from public view”.
Potential employees are told that they should shoot foxes and then “move out of view from the public and to appropriately dispose” of the dead animals.
The tender adds: “In exceptional circumstances, dogs may be used to track a wounded fox, only with prior agreement from the RSPB.”
The charity includes strict monitoring and reporting rules for the contractor.
The tender is for a contract worth up to £92,320 which runs for four years from March 2021 to July next year at Upper Lough Erne near Fermanagh in Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where hunting with dogs is still allowed. There are various exceptions to the ban in Scotland, England and Wales, where professionals are allowed to use two dogs to stalk or flush foxes.
The contract is part of an EU-funded project across the UK to protect curlews, the population of which the RSPB notes has declined by 48 per cent since the mid-1990s.
“The UK holds around a quarter of the global breeding population,” the tender states. “Due to their rapid decline, the global importance of the UK breeding population and their globally near threatened status on the IUCN red list, curlew are probably one of the most urgent bird conservation priorities in the UK.”
‘Humane, competent and safe’
Louisa Cheape, a vet who sits on the committee of The Veterinary Association for Wildlife Management, said that whilst shooting foxes was “very effective” there are concerns over it as a conservation practice and about how humane it is.
The RSPB specification says that all shots “must be carried out in a humane, competent and safe manner” and can be taken at less than 200 metres.
During the badger cull, as a comparison, marksmen were only allowed to take a shot from a maximum of 70m.
“Two hundred metres is an enormous range for an animal of that size at night,” Mrs Cheape said.
“It would be very difficult to know whether you had killed or wounded that animal.”
A study has shown that even for a skilled marksman shooting a fox with a rifle at night the kill rate is below 50 per cent and drops the further away they are from the animal.
Mrs Cheape said that it would be difficult to find, especially at night, and the “suffering of the animal is directly related to the time that it spends wounded”.
‘Difficult and emotive subject’
Writing in today’s Telegraph, Lord Botham said that it was unclear what the most humane method is of killing a fox as “despite Parliament having spent hundreds of hours debating foxhunting, Tony Blair’s government never commissioned any science”.
Lord Botham called for “a debate about the acceptable way to kill a fox” and for “proper science” to inform the discussion.
The RSPB, which says Larsen traps are the most effective way of controlling crowns, sets out rules for their use including that they are checked twice a day and live bait birds are provided with food and shelter.
While these will mitigate any suffering “it is absolutely not without its welfare implications” because of the size of the cage the birds are kept in and the distress at being trapped, Mrs Cheape said.
An RSPB spokesman said “The decision to introduce any form of animal control is something we never take lightly and is always a last resort.
“The RSPB is open and transparent about why it is sometimes necessary as we try and protect and restore some of the UK’s most threatened wildlife and habitats, but we appreciate that this is a really difficult and emotive subject for many people.”
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And for those unfamiliar with the RSPCA new guidelines
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