Failure is always disappointing, but the Badger Trust
losing its legal challenge of the Badger Cull to the government was
particularly galling because, it appears to me now that culling without
independent monitors will create killing of the lowest denominator. As many as you can for as cheap as you can type
package.
This week, I have put up my longest ever video film on YouTube,
a full seven minutes. Normally my weekly short films are a minute to a minute
and a half in length, (another seven minutes of boredom some people might
think,) however, today I chose to put up a longer film simply to show my
Badgers in a random state of work, rest and play. With a longer duration time you can clearly
see in the seven minutes what I have observed through my lifetime. The Badger stands for community, he stands
for family and above all, he stands for integrity. For in the case of the Badger, what you see
is what you get. A caring companion, a
great parent and a stalwart defender.
A lot of Badgers, I’m very sad to say, will now die after
this high court ruling, but we must all do what we can to help and support one
of the most important icons to this island’s countryside.
The Badger is the toughest, strongest and the most able
animal within these shores to withstand this oncoming onslaught, but even this
great hard character of the woodlands can only realistically take so much. Persecution to the Badger has come in many
forms and taken on many guises. But now,
his fight is with the establishment. A
body that has not listened to science and has not reasoned with positive debate.
Way back in the seventies a Badger sett I looked over as
a child was destroyed in the most savage, barbaric and brutal fashion. Badger baiters I despise with a passion. There was one survivor, a little runt of a
Badger. He had been severely mauled and
yet, he managed to pull through and when he was strong enough he was taken from
that place of carnage and placed in another Badger sett where the inhabitants
welcomed and looked after him. There he flourished and his descendants still thrive
to this very day.
But as I watch his descendants play and frolic throughout
the woodland I think back to that August day all those years ago and the scene I
encountered as I entered that particular parcel of woodland. Badgers strewn around, ripped to pieces. Three dead baiting dogs just been dumped
underneath the bushes, but the overriding memory by far was the old male Badger
who I had nicknamed all those years ago as Daddy Cool. His injuries were probably the most catastrophic. His head, shoulders and hind quarters had
been ripped so savagely that he was totally unrecognizable to the old Badger
who I once knew and loved. His stance and his injuries and his
positioning to the sett was that of one who had defended and fought to the
bitter end.
A creation of nature so at one within the woodland they occupy,
it seems to me their mere existence should be applauded and marvelled, but
instead we look to destroy and do our level best to rearrange an eco-system
that works scientifically beautifully.
The sun is shining here in The Cotswolds. My son Sam along with two of his friends and
his mother Jackie have just done their ice bucket challenges. As their exuberant screams of ecstasy and
sudden shock ring out across The Cotswold hills I cannot help but think, surely
the Government would have much better things to occupy its so called academic minds? President Obama dropped the bombshell that
the United States has got no specific strategy to deal with Isis and other
Islamic fundamentalist groups which run through Syria, Iraq and the whole of
the Middle East. You are seeing Russian
tanks roll into a sovereign Ukraine and the memorabilia of the start of the
1914 1918 war is ever constant in our media.
With all this global turmoil going on, the world being at its most
fragile state since 1945, the United Kingdom being put on Severe Alert for
terrorism, you would honestly think that this coalition government of ours
would have more pressing business affairs at home and abroad rather than wage
war once again on our old ‘mind my own business’ icon, the British Badger.
This government’s best laid strategy on combatting Bovine
TB lay in the restriction of cattle movements and a countrywide oral
vaccination programme for the Badger.
The latter will involve, tenacity, ingenuity and a mind-set akin to the
Badger. A hands-on, a must-do and no job
too big approach.
Please watch my short but longer than normal video of my
Badgers.
A Badger's Community
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