Where Have All the Badgers Gone?

People are looking for answers into plummeting badger numbers in the run up to the cull with the apparent 50% decline over a year before the cull started appears to be unprecedented! Of course DEFRA officials have blamed the cold winter, disease or lack of food for the dwindling numbers.

But if people cast their minds back to the wet, wet summer of 2012, a group of Farmers in the West Country had set up a badger-protection group this was less than a month before a Government cull of badgers was due to begin.  The Badger Welfare Association (BWA) as they called themselves said it is dedicated to the creation of a healthy, balanced badger population. 

The BWA was campaigning for official recognition of the work of an Oakhampton farmer, who had acquired expertise in identifying which setts are occupied by TB infected badgers and which are not. I do not know what part of his autonomy used to determine a diseased sett, but I suspect he played it safe and classified all badger setts as diseased setts. The BWA says once diseased setts have been pinpointed, the occupants can be killed by pumping in carbon monoxide gas from the farm tractor. Modern farming techniques just take your breath away, literally for the badgers!

There have been three official attempts to count badgers in West Somerset and West Gloucestershire prior to the cull. The latest data suggests the population in both areas has fallen from around 8,000 badgers in October 2012, to around 4,000 badgers a year later in both zones. DEFRA have given a number of reasons for the apparent 50% decline, including the impact of last winter's bad weather, disease and lack of food. But funny they do not mention illegal badger killing; either shooting, gassing or via snares.

However many animal welfare charities are concerned that illegal killing of badgers may be the real reason behind this large fall in their numbers. As last week Sky News claimed that farmers in the Somerset cull zone had admitted on camera to gassing badgers via an informal syndicate that they had set up.

This is of grave concern as many farmers are in receipt of farming benefits for wildlife management and possibly also land and environmental stewardship schemes.

The bovine TB is the result of the incompetence of DEFRA and the NFU where they have failed to manage the spread of bovine TB by there reluctance to implement better bio-security measures and properly validated and enforced cattle movement controls but most critically failing to invest to improve TB testing, which is quite simply so inaccurate within the industry. They have allowed the disease to seep into the surrounding wildlife population and now they want to scapegoat the badger,

Now as the trial culls are extended and with more roll-outs expected next year. Many in different counties such as Dorset where the local Dorset West MP Oliver Letwin resides. He has stated he is looking forward to the badger cull in his home patch!

Oliver Letwin is yet another Old Etonian Cabinet Minster whose most recent claim to fame was dumping his paperwork in a London park!

Mr Letwin, was an adviser to Margaret Thatcher, is thought to be independently affluent (very rich). Mr Letwin is no stranger to controversy; he is reputedly the person who advised Baroness Thatcher to introduce the poll tax, which caused riots, and had to go into hiding during the 2001 general election campaign after advocating public spending cuts that went further than the Conservatives had announced.

Since 2004, he has claimed more than £80,000 of expenses for a cottage in Somerset close to his Dorset constituency. The property is in an isolated area and Mr Letwin claims for the cost of heating fuel and emptying the septic tank. 

The most controversial claim was made in September 2006. An invoice for £2,145 was submitted by Mr Letwin for works to lay a new 25mm pipeline to replace the existing leaking pipeline under the tennis court of his country home. He is also a non-executive director of NM Rothschild Corporate Finance. 

These badger culls are going to continue for years to come and the only hope is a change of government, but until then perhaps we can all opt to avoid both British meat and dairy as we try and halt this slaughter in the countryside.