A Badger’s Poetry in Motion

A new found stability of conscience was found at the beginning of the week on the ending of the 2014 Badger Cull.  A gigantic weight has now been lifted from the back of nature and the countryside on the ending of this needless, futile, slaughter.  And once again, the official figures are showing and Defra are saying the quota of Badger deaths have nowhere near been met.  Great news for the British Badger and yet highlighting the total incompetence of the people who set the numbers on this barbaric slaughter. 

The second year of the Badger Cull and the resulting information is the same as last year.  The culling in the cull zones has not generated the number of deaths that had been hoped for.  It should be now quite obvious to Defra and the Ministry of the Environment that the quota of dead Badgers is not being met simply because the countryside as I have said so many times before, is not awash with the black and white beasts, yet the damage done on each of these culling sprees is so very often irreversible.  For the first time this week a poll from one of the broadcasters announced that nine out of ten people are dead against the Badger cull and the total misspend of tax payers monies, and yet the culling goes ahead regardless.  For the time being at least, let us celebrate with the British Badger on the ending of the 2014 Badger cull.

A meeting this week with my old game keeper friend, Nimrod, in which he was pleased to announce that his employer, Lord and Lady Foxton’s Badger sett was doing extremely well and the family’s summer night time excursions Badger watching had been exceptionally enjoyable.  The programme of walling and tree planting to protect the sett had proved to be most advantageous. 

My own Badger sett is also doing exceptionally well.  The behaviour from this week I found to be greatly amusing.  Early in the week the gales were quite severe in this part of The Cotswolds bringing down an abundance of autumn leaves.  The Badger being an animal not to miss out on any opportunity from nature made vast inroads into gathering as many leaves from this autumn harvest as possible.  Dragging them away to their sett with their front paws in a most efficient manner.  The Badger values dryness and comfort almost as much as a full stomach. 

Nights are now turning a lot colder, the remedial effect of this showed itself in the form of a first noticeable frost down in the valley last Wednesday morning.

The Badger’s life is a very wholesome one.  He is the hand that fits so beautifully into nature’s glove.  An animal so at home within our woodland.  The two are sheer poetry. 

After the setbacks of the 2013 and 2014 Badger culls along with the unhelpful remarks from our Princess Royal on how gassing Badgers is the most humane way of dealing with them and the general public being kept pretty much in the dark on the wellbeing of our British Icon, I feel that there is the smallest glint of light through the trees towards the end of the woodland.  The British public are now slowly becoming more aware of the plight of the British Badger and more sympathetic to the Badger cause.  Information is key in any form of preservation and when one sits and looks at both sides of the argument and the weight carrying evidence on both sides I can only honestly come to the conclusion that the Badger culls are unjust, unscientifically proven and the whole thing can only be described as unscientifically proven Badger butchery.

Please watch my short film of Mrs Badger gathering leaves to bed down her sett.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDgAjRBulkw&feature=youtube_gdata

The Woodland Patriarch Will Never Stand Alone

This October weather is so unseasonably mild.  Temperatures that you would normally associate with the middle of May have enveloped this part of The Cotswolds.

My Badgers seem to be getting their fill, their body condition looks superb.  They are in the type of condition that will enable them to withstand the forthcoming winter’s worst. 

The Badger cull has gone on regardless.  A meaningless, pointless exercise that can only result in more impoverished, Badgerless landscapes and will do nothing to reduce the TB in our cattle herds.  An argument that continues to fall on Defra’s deaf ears. 

As I sit up at my Badger sett on constant guard night after night, I watch Daddy Cool and Mrs Cool with their entirety of their family.  A sight that excites and intrigues me with equal measure.  Where deep within the woodland their behavioural antics are filled with respect, caring and loving relationships that seem to thrive on togetherness and the wellbeing of each and every member of the group which is paramount.  I have watched Daddy Cool from the moment his cubs were born, take them this way and that within the woodland in an ever changing programme of protection.  I have witnessed poachers come right to the boundaries of the Badger’s woodland and each time of danger Daddy Cool has gathered his family and withdrew from the situation.  He has marched his family away from the danger by as much as a quarter of a mile in one evening and dug in ferociously by the end of it. 

An unconfrontational patriarch whose presence symbolises the very word wild, for the British Badger is fundamentally wild to his heart and graces and honours any woodland habitat that is lucky enough to host him. 

As I watched Daddy Cool and his entirety of his family saunter amongst the massive beech, oak and ash trees brevetting around for the fallen beech nuts and woodland mushrooms, I am watching nature that has not changed for thousands of years, but the devastating acts of the 2013 and 2014 Badger culls has unleashed demons amongst the British Badgers that in some cases nature will be totally unable to rectify.  The robust, strong hard man of the woodlands needs the kind, tenderness, caring hospitality that he shows to his family and his environment through every heartbeat of his life. 

Please watch my short film of Daddy Cool and his whole family enjoying his wild woodland in the manner that nature intended and when you have watched the film, ask yourself honestly, is raising a gun, setting a snare or laying poison in any way a just measure, backed by government or otherwise to treat a British icon?

My old friend, Daddy Cool and Patriarch of his woodlands will never stand alone. Long live Daddy Cool, Lord Protector of our woodlands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLLpLSAIwcs&feature=youtube_gdata

Daddy Cool with his entire family.

A Badger’s Blood Moon.

The season of autumn now reigns supreme over this part of The Cotswolds.  The season that never ceases to delight me with its beauty.  A transformation of the newly drilled cereal fields and the changing of colours throughout the bushes and trees captivates as if by magic every morning’s and early evening’s differential of colour. A tapestry of beauty unequalled by anything else that I have ever seen outside of nature who seems to be able to trumpet it each passing month.  Throughout all the seasons and changes of the landscapes one thing is always, thank goodness, so very constant, the degree, quality of beauty and richness, so diverse in every detail is always there.  A joy most certainly to behold. 

This week the Badgers up at my Badger sett have thoroughly enjoyed their nights out under the Blood Moon.  The fullness of which, has lit up their woodland wilderness to such a degree, they  could be seen from some distance. Their enjoyment of these evenings I have witnessed once again first hand.  Their community, their loving, caring behaviour for each other keeps me in as much of a trance now as it did thirty years ago.  The Badger truly worships his environment and the environment truly worships the Badger. 

I stayed out with them every evening while the moon lit up their playground for when nights are this light, I always feel very uncomfortable for the Badger.  For nights like these, he is at his most vulnerable to the rifle.  But I am so happy to report there was no blood spilled of my Badger colony on this breath taking, glorious Blood Moon.

The government still goes ahead with the futile, brainless, devastating Badger cull.  Attacking a part of nature and an eco-system that works so scientifically beautifully against all the evidence that the killing of these black and white beasts of nature will do absolutely nothing to eradicate Bovine TB in our cattle herds.  For an animal of such presence to be treated in such a hostile fashion is a crime and in my humble opinion, it is a crime against nature herself.  We must all stand firm and protect the Badgers that we know about, for, once a Badger sett has been destroyed, the Badger seldom returns and that part of our countryside that hosted the great Black and Whites is disfranchised forever. 

The two great diseases filling the news at the moment that does require everyone’s attention is Isis and Ebola.  The prescription for the Isis problem is going to require an international force with boots on the ground.  Air strikes alone cannot possibly dislodge them.  Again, we are months and months behind the curve.  So many lost and ruined lives, all actions have been totally inadequate to contain this rampant disease across the Middle East. 

On the Ebola side of things, the measure for screening at our airports and the Euro Star, St Pancreas station, London, taken by our government this week seems all rather unsettling.  To a layman like myself it seems an absolute non brainer that you must have all the screening done in West Africa before people travel, rather than let people travel from these destinations where Ebola seems most rife.  Travelling on airplanes, trains, cheek by jowle with all other passengers.  It seems to me that if you want an Ebola epidemic we are going about things in just the right way.  Basic Foot and Mouth precautions seem light years more advanced than the procedure put in place to contain something like Ebola.  Quarantine and isolation is the best start of prevention.  Fundamental measures that have been left wanting. 

Scientists worldwide are working around the clock to produce an ever better vaccine for this cursed Ebola, for this is how it will be combatted like all other major diseases.  The world’s best intelligence working together to create a retaliatory vaccine, something that should have been put in place for our own Bovine TB cattle programme because, without the vaccination of our countryside Badgers in oral form or otherwise, means this horrendous Badger cull will have to continue year on year because the denominator laid down by Defra is that killing Badgers is the only alternative to the ongoing Bovine TB problem in our cattle herds.  Vaccination is and always will be the driver that will eradicate Bovine TB in our cattle herds.

Please watch my short film of my Badgers tustling and wrestling, having the time of their lives under a Blood Moon, enjoying their woodland environment to the full.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSss1yBdfPA&feature=youtube_gdata

Badgers playing in their woodland under a Blood Moon

Badgers and Tornados.

My blog last week didn’t happen due to us taking our son Sam to settle him in at his chosen university where he is going to study agriculture and all aspects of land management.  A very exciting time for Sam but a little sad for Jackie and I.  Our daughter left home to go to Kings University London to study medicine two years ago and now with our son flying the nest, it is extremely quiet at home.  The years of them hanging on your every word and listening to your words of advice are now a memory.  The pangs of any parent being left out of the loop at this particular stage of their life can be quite traumatic.  Will they eat properly? Will they make new friends? Are they going to like it? And will they be safe?  You are only too well aware that your job as the family protector has been somewhat diminished. 

As my wife and I waited for confirmation of him enjoying it or otherwise, time seemed to pass immeasurably slowly until my wife screamed from the kitchen to the sitting room.  “He has put some photos up on Facebook,”  and there he was smiling with new found friends, another degree of confidence and all round, looked a very happy chappie, just like his sister when she started her university.  Jackie and I were really pleased and were now able to relax in our new life of just the two of us.

Politically, the autumn conferences from the Labour Party and the Conservative Party went pretty much in the direction that I would have expected.  Labour in their conference announcing that if they were to win the General Election they would put an end to this cursed Badger Cull nonsense.  While the Conservative Party’s Environment Minister, Liz Truss has said that she would like to re-introduce Fox hunting.  Such a lame, destructive voice which conjures up even more loss to our precious environment. The figures of 40% of the world’s wildlife being lost since 1945 seems to completely evade her. The Coalition Government of the last four years of the Conservatives and the Liberals on the whole have served very well although now, the marriage seems to have irretrievably broken down, with the two parties being at logger heads over almost everything.   But the true saving grace for the Conservatives was the sending of our British Tornados to be alongside the Americans in hitting this Isis menace head on once and for all.  How wonderful it would all be if the whole of our Government were to concentrate on the combatting of the Isis terror rather than needlessly generating and unleashing the Badger Cull terror within our countryside.

The Badger Cull is now half way through its proposed running time and already from the people that know, the killing targets are not being reached.  Hardly surprising, because I have said so many times before, the countryside is not awash with families of Badgers now or ever has been. 

Inhumane, brutal, barbaric actions handed down to one of nature’s total innocents, the British Badger.  Already there has been many horror stories of vicious treatment being metered out to the black and white beast which was also very predictable.  The Badger Cull in the British Isles of 2013 and again this year has diminished the protected status of the species, inevitably the consequences were always going to be thus. 

DEfRA and the previous minister of the Environment, Owen Paterson and now Liz Truss have spoken of going out on a late summer’s night and just popping off the Badgers in a most matter-of-fact childlike, naivity manner.  When in reality those of us who have studied Badgers know that they can pick up scent from two miles away, they can hear a twig crack from three quarters of a mile away and for a stranger to get near a sett to shoot one is nigh on impossible, so they were always going to be shot from range.  Blundering tactics creating and inflicting wounds which in all cases will cause a very slow and lingering death. 

The Coopers who look over my own Badger sett have dismantled their tent and withdrawn from the woodlands for their own comfort and safety.  The weather now is starting to get a lot more autumnal.  As I sit on the edge of the woodland looking out over the autumn brown landscape I see a tractor and seed drill in the distance.  Plumes of dust trailing in his wake.  We have had the driest September since 1910, the Badgers have found foraging these last three weeks difficult.  Daddy Cool, the big old male Badger has led them further and further away from their sett.  They are going outside the safety of his woodland stronghold.  This first autumnal rain that we are enjoying for some time is as welcome to the Badgers as it is to the newly drilled seed for germination. 

Please watch my short film which shows the return of Daddy Cool to the woodland slumping down, yawning and then falling fast asleep after a long night’s foraging. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b3ktqK4O1M&feature=youtube_gdata

A humble, hardworking and total innocent of the senseless slaughter that surrounds him.  Long live the Lord Protector of our woodlands.

Gordon Brown Most Welcome in the Badgers Union

Quite an amazing week.  A referendum that gripped two nations, the Scots and the English.  A campaign driven by the people, constantly fuelled by all sets of media.  Stakes on both sides of the border along with the political parties could have hardly been greater.  The most phonetic time of politics since Edward Heath’s Conservative government joined us up with the EEC in 1973. 

After last weekend’s Yougov polls put Alex Salmond’s Scottish National Party a couple of points ahead of the Unionists, alarm bells rang all around Westminster.  Our party political leaders were stunned into action.  David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband who had all been so lethargic, almost to an outsider nurturing the idea of an independent Scotland, in the eleventh hour saw the error of their sluggish like thinking and all made hastily engagements for early week debates in Scotland to try and halt the Scottish uprising. 

For a short time the Union was evaporating in front of our very eyes.  The most successful union in history was coming to an end. But as the call went out, one man rose like a giant above all others, the name of that man was Gordon Brown.  For me, Gordon Brown without any doubt saved the Union.  His speeches were almost electrifying, like a mid-19^th century stalwart politician, oratory almost equalling the great Winston Churchill, who hammered out his convictions in a most matter of fact, heart felt, respectful, almost humble at times manner.  As the curtain was falling on a three hundred year old union, he had the ability to make people pause and think whilst stood on the very brink.

Friday morning when the final results were announced, 45% of Scots wanting independence from England and 55% still wanting the Union I reflected on just how close the whole thing had come to unravelling.  The referendum has broken seams in an old coat that has been truly well worn.  Seams that has been broken and weakened by an almost self-destruct idea of being able to do better, when in reality, England, Scotland and Wales have always put the Great into Great Britain. 

As I sit watching over my Badgers with the full knowledge of the senseless Badger slaughter starting up again in parts of Gloucestershire and Somerset, I thought how nice it would be to have a heavy weight politician of the stature of Gordon Brown speaking up on behalf of the British Badger. 

For twenty years he played second fiddle to Tony Blair.  When he eventually became Prime Minister the party was over.  Tony Blair had slipped out of the back door and left Gordon Brown holding a cake in which he would have to have been the Messiah to satisfy the mouths in which it was to be fed.  Our country was broken by a false economic yearly house price rise which could never realistically cope in paying back the debts that had accumulated on the de-regulation of the banks in the mid-eighties under a Thatcher, Tory Government that started up all day Sunday trading and an endless wallet of plastic cards to quench the insatiable, ever wanting, must have more British appetite.  An economy of madness that Gordon Brown almost single-handedly carried the can for. 

The double act of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair always showed Tony Blair in the limelight and Gordon Brown in the gloom.  But if their posts could be reversed and now you had Gordon Brown as peace envoy in the Middle East you would now have a voice of conviction and integrity, but one can never have it all.  And I for one will always be grateful for the rousing Union speeches of Gordon Brown.  Three cheers for Gordon Brown for saving the Union.

My Badgers came up from deep in the woodland to Daddy Cool’s favourite spot on the Northern boundary.  The Throne of Daddy Cool.  How very fitting for the most important vote in our Union’s history for over three hundred years.

Please watch my short film of Daddy Cool in the most beloved spot of his woodland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAYjPkjxY3s

Daddy Cool checking out his Throne.

Badgers, Scots and Stonehenge

Last week’s blog didn’t happen due to my daughter’s 21^st birthday. It was a very busy but jolly affair starting off with Sophie being collected from the local station, joined later that evening by her two medical student friends.  Supper soon ensued with lots of lively chat which went on late into the evening. Saturday was spent with Sophie showing them some local attractions, one being Sudeley Castle at Winchcombe which was greatly admired by her two friends.

My wife Jackie had purchased a Maison Blanc birthday cake which always seems to fit the birthday occasion exceedingly well.  That evening Sophie opened all of her presents and cards.  We all then sat around the dining table where we were presented with a sumptuous meal cooked by Jackie. We raised several glasses of champagne in celebration of my daughter’s 21^st and congratulating her on her forthcoming 3^rd year at Medical School.  Also, celebrating my son’s passing of his driving test and his imminent start at the Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester.  Sunday was a little more sedate with all of the girls going off on a long walk and then just relaxing in the garden before we said a goodbye to Sophie’s two friends and taking Sophie back to the station.  It was a most successful and enjoyable weekend.

The week previous had seen a lot of comings and goings over the Cotswold airways.  American fighter jets and British jets going through their manoeuvres.  Practicing the protocol of protecting the most powerful man on earth, President Obama, on his arrival on Air Force One at Royal Air Force Base Fairford the evening ahead of the NATO summit which was being held at the Celtic Manor, Newport, Wales.    

World disturbance is on a monumental scale.  NATO seems to have its hands full like never before.  Crisis in Ukraine where cease fires barely last for hours, let alone days.  Isis running amok, threatening the whole stability throughout the Middle East.  Ebola epidemic in Africa that could create losses of biblical proportions.  In amongst all this world turmoil this government still seems to be pressing on with the 2014 Badger Cull. 

Last Sunday morning, President Obama stopped off at Stonehenge for a walk round our own world heritage site.  There he posed with a local family. A magical moment for this family and a very down to earth glimpse of a President who seems to be most humanitarian. And to think Badgers were roaming this island long before these stones were put into place. 

The news and media has been full of the forthcoming referendum of Scotland’s independence.  A decision once taken that cannot readily be reversed.  A coming together of two Nations that has lasted for over three hundred years.  A coming together of two Nations to form free trade, the first truly international free trade the world had ever known, when Britannia ruled the waves. This small island sending Sail Ships out to all the continents of the world.  An achievement never equalled in history. 

The Canadian President this week reported that they think they have found one of Franklin’s two ships, either the HMS Erebus or HMS Terror, the ill-fated expedition which left British shores in 1845 searching for the fabled North West Passage.

The Union with Scotland Act was passed in 1706 and the United Kingdom was formed in January 1707.The Scots joined from a very weak economic base. Scotland however then prospered in all the new found trade routes and the Scotland we know and love today was founded on the back of this partnership.  A partnership built on trust, fairness and above all trade.  When I stand back and look at today’s kaleidoscope of diverse, technological and ever changing trade I cannot help but come to the conclusion that if Scotland does go independent, it will without doubt be the worse decision it has made in over three hundred years. 

The Coopers have been practicing their Badger cage trick up at my Badger sett.  The plans put in place last year to evacuate the sett if needs must were once again sanctioned this week by my friends in Hereford.  The proposed Badger cull is unjust and is an attack on the innocence of wildlife and with everything else going on worldwide that needs the attention of our best minds, the futile continuation of this hair-brained scheme to rid our cattle herds of TB to me is madness beyond belief.

Once again, this part of The Cotswolds Badger population is on red alert.  Operation Mozart’s Magic Flute is on standby, Who Dares Wins.

Please watch my short film of a group of Badgers contemplating the end of summer as the curtain slowly raises for the onset of autumn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31xORgl7NlQ&feature=youtube_gdata

Badgers contemplating the end of summer.

Strategy and A Badger’s Family Circle

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. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cauzsq-MkHw&feature=youtube_gdata

A Badger's Community