The fourth in our series of guest blogs by Eddie Palmer, Chairman of the charity Scottish Badgers is below.

SNARING, GAME-KEEPING, SHOOTING AND OTHER THINGS

We turn now to a host of legal activities, none of which should affect our wildlife – but they do.

In the Annual Report of Scottish Badgers, we always list offences, in other words what has happened to badgers in the last year – and a sorry tale it is too, of shot badgers, maimed and dead badgers in snares, and other ‘accidents’, e.g. badgers killed by tractors running over setts and squashing them, slurry being pumped down setts, vehicle exhaust fumes getting down setts (how?).

I’m sure you are asking about how many of these get to court, and the sad answer is ‘very few’. The reasons are to do with the level of hard evidence required for conviction, (we can’t argue with people having a fair trial), but the vagaries of the countryside often mean a long-time Police response, (not their fault, usually), and also the availability of Police.

One issue that comes up often, from some members of the traditional farming community, is ‘badgers have no predators, so they have to be controlled’ – well, yes, they do have a major predator.. They have the ‘Super – Predator’, that is ‘Man’. The phrase was first coined, I am led to believe, by staff at Glasgow University, looking at extinctions in animals, and finding that it was not ‘extreme climate change’, or unknown factors causing extinction – it was always the hand of man. This was due to changes in farming, or industrial, or development factors, most obviously the destruction of habitat, for whatever purpose. Badgers do have other mammal predators, notably wolves, bears or wolverines in other parts of Europe.

In the UK, badgers have to put with the actions, and intentions, of those usually looking to ‘control predators’, often in order to kill something such as game birds. The shooting industry, powered by the inputs and money of those who manufacture guns and ammunition, is vocal in this. They appear to be able to ignore the harm done by lead ammunition in the environment, currently estimated to be in the thousands of tonnes per, year, maybe rising from 10,000 to 30,000 tonnes.  (If surprised, think of people spending all day continually shooting at either clays or real birds, and multiply up).

 So, one species is either produced in vast numbers, or imported (an example being pheasant, a non-native species, I’d remind everybody, in numbers of millions, not thousands). Poor and sorry young birds are dumped down in a new habitat, and obviously provide a new restaurant for any predator. They do not even provide food for anybody, the remains after shooting usually dumped in a pit and buried. No wonder carnivores gather in some number to feast, and this is what artificially bumps up a population.

Badgers can often be blamed for this, and I and we have heard every sort of accusation – badgers eat bird’s eggs, well yes, when they are in front of them; badgers chase and hunt lambs, well no they don’t, as evidenced by hundreds of hour of trail camera footage..

(If the reader wishes to check out lots of FACTS about these type of allegations of badgers and predation, go and look at our website www.scottishbadgers.org.uk)

Snaring is one particularly nasty practice, not helped by arcane rules, and should be banned totally. ‘Targeting’ predators, mainly foxes, is impossible to police, and everything that can go wrong with snares does happen. A snare has only to fall over in soft ground, or the loop of wire widen and its possible purpose totally changes.

I’ve been involved over the years in arcane conversations, often between police and gamekeepers, and since the rules changed in Scotland some 8 years ago (a ‘compromise’ was reached instead of a ban), confusion still rules.

A good example is that of the positioning of snares, supposed not to be ‘near’ a badger sett, and ‘not on a badger path’. Yes, well who supervises and takes a stance on this? Funnily enough, badgers do not always stay on their paths – uncooperative aren’t they?

The sensible gamekeeper just does not snare at all in a badger wood, but wherever they are, snares still continually and commonly harm pet dogs and cats, and all animal species.

You are probably picking up some frustration over this on my behalf – well, yes. It is a common feeling in each of the four UK countries, that there is not ‘a flat playing field’, and that some powerful interests manage to get their way. The nature conservation body in each country certainly gives the impression, fair or not, that the concerns of landowners, farmers and shooters hold sway, even when the science clearly says otherwise.

The issue of whom believes whom is a fascinating one.

Recently, quite a lot of criticism has been levelled at the Nature Conservation bodies in all four countries, mainly over the issue of licences to deal with the ‘management of

wild animals and birds. I won’t go into the minutiae of that, it’s both boring and complicated, but both anxiety and concern has risen.

The most worrying facet appears to be the denial of science; worthy ecologists and biologists say something after years of painstaking research, to be met by blank denial from some quarters. It appears that (this illustration is mine, but taken from real life) if one puts six gents in tweeds into a room for a time, and they come out and state something, without a shred of outside evidence or research, then it’s taken to be true. We do still have a very obvious group of people who do indeed run the country.

The whole issue of climate change and the enormous effects it will have on us all are to an extent shielded by a small group who do want to change, and farming practices are to the forefront.

A pity then (this is the day after COP 26 finished), that a weary Chris Packham felt he had to point out that the words ‘Agriculture’ , and ‘soil health’ had not been mentioned!

Final blog coming up  – badger baiting, and a bit more on fixed beliefs