Badger Survey? Not For Me

 It seems that I need to make my as well as a few others' decision to not take part in the Badger Trust Survey to find setts.  

Firstly, I have nothing personal against the Trust but being honest they have pushed for an end to the badger cull and many other things and I have signed their petitions and...nothing. I know after over forty years that you can have a petition signed to overflowing and the response will be that "The House has a full roster of items for this Parliamentary session" and the rest of the response is that the petition will be considered later. That is, to put it crudely, a "piss off not interested".

You can get anti-snaring, anti-trail hunting and anything else fully signed or even thousands more signatures than required and the same thing.  They did the same with the Brexit petition which has still never been discussed and neither has the anti-snaring petition and numerous others. It's a joke.

I am not a member of the Badger Trust because I do not feel the need to pay £50 to be registered so that I and the Bristol Badger Group can go on doing what it has been doing since 1994 but be placed on a member group map.

When it comes to a national survey to list badger setts I refuse to take part. Again, I have no idea who would handle the data gathered and saying everyone must sign a non Disclosure agreement means nothing. Who handles and collates and puts the data on computer? Who sees the data because if you state fact you will need to back it up and that means disclosing information. As a signee of the PAWS -Partners Against Wildlife Crime- I saw how that was twisted and changed whenever DEFRA felt like it. The one reason I signed off of it was because I was told "You give us copies of all your records, maps and other data or else"

There is no such thing as 100% security and although it would be interesting to see what remains of badgers in England it would also highlight how many badgers/setts there are and that is useful to the cull -read the various posts on this blog about that.

After forty years I can tell anyone interested that wildlife conservation is a war. We are seeing 200,000 foxes and badgers killed on the road each year and you'll find a blog post about wildlife road deaths: We know that there are shooters that kill many foxes

https://foxwildcatwolverineproject.blogspot.com/2024/01/how-many-animals-killed-on-uk-roads.html

We know that there are shooters that kill many foxes and other wildlife (including badgers) for 'fun' each week. We know there is snaring going on. And much more. Even the British Trust for Ornithology have stated that foxes may need to be Red Listed. 

I keep a rough location of badger setts in case a lactating sow is found dead and cubs need to be rescued and that information is given to me under strict confidentiality and trust and that is important -far more important than a survey that I know other badger people will not take part in.

Until the cull stops and full protection is given to badgers I do not intend to even roughly outline where a sett is. Snaring was made illegal in Wales but it is still going on. To me the safety of wildlife is far more important and that is why I do not cooperate with these things.

Badgers and foxes are heading for extinction, otters are being killed and we are fighting without the support of the public where 52,000 sign a petition to rescue a 'lonely sheep' while the death of 250,000 badgers does not get an eye lash to move.