The Destruction of our Wildlife – The Holy Trinity on a Mission!

This has been a year where the Holy Trinity of the Countryside lobby groups have joined forces to destroy as much of our wildlife as possible.

The Holy Trinity of Countryside Blood!

Countryside Alliance (CA)

Country Land and Business Association (CLA)

National Farmers Union (NFU)

These are the big three countryside lobby groups who make Trade Unions look like a Sunday School picnic.

The National Trust holds out little hope as with nearly 4 million members only about 3% bother to vote so the Blood Sports Lobby have control. With Fox, Stag hunting often taking place on trust land. Even the only estate to trial badger vaccination promotes shooting of both game and wildfowl in association with the British Association fro Shooting and Conservation (BASC). This is the Killerton Estate near Exeter. Badger culling will be down to if they can get away with it; i.e. if so few complain then to support their tenner farmers and fall in line with the 'Big Three'!

Britain has very little land that can be considered part of the public trust. A third of the countries land remains under the ownership of the aristocracy; a set that both Prime Minster David Cameron and Environment Minster Owen Paterson belong. 
In Portugal the aristocracy pride themselves with Bullfighting on horseback.

But how can anyone of sound mind think of bring hunting back in a legal state; however I do not think that the Archbishop will raise any objections and perhaps even offer to bless the hounds at some of the country’s premier meets. As was the case with the local vicar of the Quorn and Cottesmore hunt as they are going to try hunting on a Sunday. The blessing could read as follows as the hounds move off:-

“All creatures great and small”

“The Lord God did make them all”

“We the hunt will go out and kill them large”

“And kill there cubs who are so small”

“The weak and the fit and the frail"

"We will seek them out and dispatch them all”

Some will tell you its Wildlife Management!

Just so many people that own land seem to spend so much time destroying the wildlife that live on it.  We must raise our voices for theses beings that do not have a voice. A poor bear confined in a dirty cage for peoples amusement and on the other hand the firefighter who nurses a frightened kola bear.

I was in Taunton last summer when Team Badger was there to raise awareness of the coming Badger Cull. Present at that meeting was SaveMe campaigner Brian May and the Chief Executive of the RSPCA Gavin Grant.

The one single item of note from that meeting was stated by Somerset's own Gavin Grant; “If this Badger Cull goes ahead then we as a nation place no value on our wildlife. This will be the beginning of the end of wildlife preservation and protection.”

A Typical Hunt So Called Trail Hunting!

This hunt is following a trial laid along the middle of the road, just follow the white lines in the road.

I quote from the West Country based Vice Chairman of the Countryside Alliance Lord Mancroft; writing in the Hunting Magazine, Spring 2008, while Labour were still in power:-

"The reason that we shall win the battle to preserve hunting and our way of life for future generations is simple. We will outlast our enemies. We will keep our hounds and horses, keep our wonderful staff, keep our communities together, keep our farmers' and landowners' support, and we shall put together the necessary resources, both financial and otherwise, to achieve all of this, and we shall continue to do this until this Labour Government falls."

Then the Holy Trinity appear to join together to launch the VoteOK grouping to effect the political outcome at general elections!

VoteOK was set up by members of the hunting fraternity in 2001 to marshal an army of hunt supporters to flood in and coordinate the ousting of marginal sitting Labour or Lib Dem anti-hunt MPs. They have been in operation over the last three general elections and can be viewed as a pro-Tory support group. They dress in normal clothes and never mention hunting to potential voters as they know it will be a vote loser.

But to return to Badgers and why where they culled? The famer needed someone to blame for the mess British agricultural is in and so the government opted for the NFU plan of ‘Blame the Badger’.

Badgers - The Farmers Scapegoat

It should be noted that the NFU who are driving these 'culls' are an unelected quango who represent, only 18% of farmers and are predominantly City money-men and yet, they are allowed to dictate government agricultural and environmental policy!

Badgers - They Just Get in the Way of Profits

These culls serve no-one but this undemocratic, feudal minority who believe they are above the law of the land. It is now generally accepted that during the last three decades with intensive farming and poor bio-security, bovine TB has seeped out into the neighbouring wildlife. So having infecting the badger, they now want to kill them; it’s every which way but loose for the poor badgers!

The two Badger Cull tails have already taken place and now they have been hailed a success and plans to roll out more next year with gassing being considered as a cheaper option for farmers.

BUT Again: Why cull baggers?
The Holy Trinity of Countryside Blood!

Countryside Alliance (CA)

Country Land and Business Association (CLA)

National Farmers Union (NFU)

CLA - Planning made easier for Solar farms/holiday homes
          Expansion of Game Bird Shooting
NFU - No badgers, no bio-security improvements needed; 
           Cheaper to product milk without wildlife considerations
CA -   Another Countryside Blood Sport to Enjoy
          Increase in fox numbers with less badgers, so good 
          news for the return of Fox Hunting

As DEFRA has also contacted the Law Commission to review the range of animal welfare legislation so with the powerful NFU driving the agenda forward we could see the return to the days when even healthy vaccinated badgers on Wildlife Trust Nature Reserves could be invaded by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) staff, an executive agency working on behalf DEFRA, to remove all the badgers on Wildlife Trust reserves. This would probably be via gassing the setts.  Our wildlife has no value these days!

BREAKING NEWS:

Wildlife groups have accused the government of caving in to big farmers over planned changes to farm subsidies in England. The government proposed increasing the proportion of farm payments transferred to protecting wildlife from 9% to 15%. But it backed it down to 12% after the big landowning farmers said this was not fair.

NEXT YEAR: Who knows what the weather will bring but one thing is for certain under this coalition government our wildlife will be under even more pressure as the large industrial farms gear up for the new deals in China. Badger culls moving out across the country as this icon wild animal so badly treated in the past is once again targeted. As the world resources are fought over and people fight to survive wildlife will suffer.

Animals need a voice, ours and the others who care. Doing nothing is no longer an option as this war on wildlife continues.

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
Mahatma Gandhi.

Badger Culling Spin

The new farm minister George Eustice says the government intends to cull badgers in many more areas next year, even though the two pilot culls failed to hit their six-week target with both zones needed to be extended and with a high police cost. Mr. Eustice said we are minded to go on next year and roll the cull out more widely he stated at the NFU tenant farmers conference on Thursday the 7th of November 2013. George Eustice won his seat with a majority of 66 votes so I suspect he can kiss his political career goodbye at the next election but perhaps his parting gesture will be launching a few badger culls in Cornwall?

The New Badger Killer Farming Minster

Mr. Eustice said also that DEFRA was keen to learn the lessons from both pilot zones and would be looking carefully at the “quite different results” when both culls had completed, as the government was inclined to roll out the culls to other TB hotspot areas. One assume from pressure from the NFU who would like to see gassing and snaring employed to kill more badgers cheaply that free shooting and cage trapping and shooting currently do.

An experimental investigation was, in fact, carried out re-fox numbers increasing in direct response to badger culling, and it was found that over a period of 2 years, "mean fox density increased by over 50% in the culled areas within two years. This could please the Countryside Alliance as they will see this as a means to overturn the hunting ban as all our pro-cull ministers, including Mr Paterson and Mr Cameron, are keen fox hunters.

As DEFRA has also contacted the Law Commission to review the range of animal welfare legislation so with the NFU driving the agenda forward we could see the return to the days when even healthy vaccinated badgers on Wildlife Trust Nature Reserves could be invaded by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) staff, an executive agency working on behalf DEFRA, to remove badgers on Wildlife Trust reserves. This would probably be via gassing setts. This would be a return to the bad old days when the then Minster of Agriculture, Fishers and Food (MAFF) would be allowed onto any farm to gas with cyanide all the badgers setts.


It should be noted that the NFU who are driving these 'culls' are an unelected quango who represent, only 18% of farmers and are predominantly City investors and yet, they are allowed to dictate government agricultural and environmental policy!


These culls serve no-one but this undemocratic, feudal minority who believe they are above the law of the land.And now we hear that bovine TB has spread to the north east in County Durham, did the badgers use a rover ticket to get there? No of course not, badgers are banned from trains, but perhaps cattle with bovine TB from the South West were transported up!

Reading in the Farmers Guardian that North Wiltshire Tory MP and hunting fanatic James Gray stated that “One of my farmers has lost his entire herd on three separate occasions. He is reported to be driving a bus at the moment and going through terrible stress.”

Fox Hunting Mad Tory

I only hope that this new bus driving farmer is not on the school run as is he really in a fit state to be diving a bus with children onboard?

But on a more serious note the statements above and similar have been widely used to blame the badger for all the failings of the farming industry under the dictatorship of the NFU which has total control over DEFRA and Natural England.

The current bovine TB problem is down to restocking from West Country herds, which traditionally have a higher rate of bovine TB; after the Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2001.

If indeed this farmer has lost his entire herd on three separate occasions then what on earth is wrong on his farm? I have seen no research on how badgers infect cattle other than a 1971 experiment which involved placing cattle in a small concrete pen with a dozen infected badgers. This cruel experiment resulted in one calf getting infected after several months confinement and the government agency at the time; MAFF concluded at the time that this route of infection was negligible. It is now known that modern farming practices have allowed bovine TB to spill out into the wildlife and with poor testing and uncontrolled cattle movements many farms will retain the disease for many months as the cycle repeats during restocking under poor bio-security and testing measures.

Badgers will soon become rare footage on BBC Autumn and SpringWatch as the farmers percussion continues. Farmers have allowed the bovine TB problem to spread into the wildlife and now they seek to destroy there victims of their messy industry and all at the tax payers expense.