The third of the accounts we have received of harassment in the countryside is below.

The Ecologist:

“I am a consultant ecologist and I spend a great deal of time surveying in the countryside. A few years ago I came across a badger caught in a snare and rang for help from the RSPCA. They came and released the animal and took it away for rehabilitation. A few days later I was working in the same area when I was approached by the gamekeeper who was extremely angry. He accused me of ‘setting him up’ by ‘planting’ the badger in the snare. He shouted that I had ‘plotted’ to ruin his career, loose him his job and make his wife and children homeless. I tried to explain that I had simply come across the badger in the snare and called for help. At this point he was joined by the local farmer who launched into a long diatribe about badgers and the damage they caused. I was accused of being against the countryside and its residents, knowing nothing about ecology and told I was lucky I wasn’t getting ‘a kicking’.

My contract to carry out work in the area was subsequently not renewed as I had apparently ‘upset the locals’.”