Predecessor | The National Federation of Badger Groups |
---|---|
Formation | 1986 |
Type | Registered Charity |
Chief Executive | Peter Hambly |
Chair | Rosie Wood |
Website | badgertrust.org.uk |
Badger Trust, formerly the National Federation of Badger Groups (NFBG), [1] is an animal welfare charity operating in England and Wales. It represents around fifty local badger groups dedicated to the conservation and protection of the European badger. [2] It states that it is the leading voice for badgers and that its charitable aim is to promote and enhance the welfare, conservation and protection of badgers, their setts and their habitats.
Badger Trust campaigns against badger culling in the United Kingdom. [3] It does this through a variety of methods including reports, presentations and local activity. It has also filed legal challenges in the High Court against planned badger culls, challenging a planned cull in Wales in 2010. [4] Badger Trust won a halt to the Welsh cull. [5] There has never been a badger cull in Wales as a result, which means England is the only home nation to cull badgers - Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not. In 2012, Badger Trust's lawyers sent a 16-page legal letter to Natural England, which licensed a badger cull, calling upon the agency to stop a planned cull in Gloucestershire and Somerset; [6] [7] in 2014, the Trust filed a challenge in High Court to this planned cull. [8] This challenge was unsuccessful. [9] In 2016, Badger Trust spoke out against plans to expand badger culling to five new areas in South West England; the group's chief executive said that the four years of badger culling had "been a disastrous failure on scientific, cost and humaneness grounds" and called for a halt. [10] Badger Trust has taken the UK government to international court under the Berne Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats on animal welfare grounds and the threat of local extinction of badgers due to the high culling rate. The case is ongoing. To date, (up to January 2023), 210,000 badgers have been culled, representing around half of the badger population. [11] In 2024 Badger Trust produced a comprehensive report on bovineTB, with input from Professor David MacDonald, outlining the lack of evidence that badgers were a primary cause. [12] [13]
In 2014, the group issued a report about illegal snaring and hunting of badgers in Britain. [14] Badger Trust sees campaigning around crimes against badgers as a key area of focus and has called for increased sentences to five years, in line with crimes against domestic animals. [15]
Badger Trust is carrying out a national survey of badger numbers, in light of the drop in population due to badger culling, "State of the Badger" Report. Trials started in 2024 in Somerset, Lancashire and Hampshire, with a planned roll out throughout England and Wales in 2025-26.
Local Badger Groups are the direct action side of the Badger Trust. There are around 50 local voluntary Badger Groups in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. [16] . In Scotland a similar role to Badger Trust is played by Scottish Badgers.
This page gives an overview of the complex structure of environmental and cultural conservation in the United Kingdom.
Badgers are short-legged omnivores in the family Mustelidae. Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united by their squat bodies and adaptions for fossorial activity. All belong to the caniform suborder of carnivoran mammals.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is a charity operating in England and Wales which promotes animal welfare.
The European badger, also known as the Eurasian badger, is a badger species in the family Mustelidae native to Europe and West Asia and parts of Central Asia. It is classified as least concern on the IUCN Red List, as it has a wide range and a large, stable population size which is thought to be increasing in some regions. Several subspecies are recognized, with the nominate subspecies predominating in most of Europe. In Europe, where no other badger species commonly occurs, it is generally just called the "badger".
The League Against Cruel Sports, formerly known as the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports, is a UK-based animal welfare charity which campaigns to stop blood sports such as fox hunting, hare and deer hunting; game bird shooting; and animal fighting. The charity helped bring about the Hunting Act 2004 and Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002, which banned hunting with hounds in England, Wales and Scotland.
Mycobacterium bovis is a slow-growing aerobic bacterium and the causative agent of tuberculosis in cattle. It is related to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium which causes tuberculosis in humans. M. bovis can jump the species barrier and cause tuberculosis-like infection in humans and other mammals.
The Hunting Act 2004 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which bans the hunting of most wild mammals with dogs in England and Wales, subject to some strictly limited exemptions; the Act does not cover the use of dogs in the process of flushing out an unidentified wild mammal, nor does it affect drag hunting, where hounds are trained to follow an artificial scent.
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Shambo was a black Friesian bull living in the interfaith Skanda Vale Temple near Llanpumsaint in Wales who had been adopted by the local Hindu community as a sacred animal. He came to public attention in April 2007, when a routine skin test for bovine tuberculosis tested positive, indicating he may have been in contact with the bacterium that causes the disease. As a result, the Welsh Government required that the bull be slaughtered. Skanda Vale disputed this and campaigned for a reprieve, expressing their belief that the sanctity of all life is the cornerstone of Hinduism. They were backed in this stance by the Hindu religious community at large. Farmers supported the Welsh Government's policy that cattle which tested positive to the skin test be destroyed in the interests of other local cattle.
Wildlife and Countryside Link (Link) is the largest environment and wildlife coalition in England, bringing together voluntary organisations in the UK to protect wildlife, restore landscapes and the marine environment and improve access to nature.
Badger culling in the United Kingdom is permitted under licence, within a set area and timescale, as a way to reduce badger numbers in the hope of controlling the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB). Humans can catch bTB, but public health control measures, including milk pasteurisation and the BCG vaccine, mean it is not a significant risk to human health. The disease affects cattle and other farm animals, some species of wildlife including badgers and deer, and some domestic pets such as cats. Geographically, bTB has spread from isolated pockets in the late 1980s to cover large areas of the west and south-west of England and Wales in the 2010s. Some people believe this correlates with the lack of badger control.
Save Me is an animal welfare organisation that campaigns against fox hunting and badger culling. It was founded in 2010 by Queen guitarist Brian May and Anne Brummer to campaign against the possible repeal of the Hunting Act in the UK. The campaign is named after the song written by May that was a worldwide hit for Queen in 1980.
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"Save the Badger Badger Badger" is a mashup of Jonti Picking's 2003 viral Flash animation Badgers and "Flash" by Queen. The song was released on 19 May 2013, in response to proposed badger culling in the United Kingdom. The song features vocals and guitar from Brian May and visuals reminiscent to the 1980 film Flash Gordon, in addition to vocals from Weebl and Brian Blessed. Said May of the song:
The British people are speaking in their many thousands, and yet the Government is refusing to listen. We thank them for buying this track and giving the badgers a voice. Let’s get this to number one so David Cameron cannot avoid it. This cull is unscientific, unethical and won’t work. The government is set to murder 5,000 badgers and yet all the peer-reviewed scientific evidence shows that the answer to the problem of bovine TB in cattle does not lie in this slaughter and that this action will be ineffective and potentially damaging to the welfare of both farm animals and wildlife. It is shocking that the NFU and the government have been allowed to continue with a politically led policy with no basis in science against the will of the people. Badgers rock!
Wildlife law in England and Wales is the law relating to the protection of wildlife in England and Wales. Much of existing UK law dates from pre-Victorian times. Wildlife was viewed as a resource to be used; phrases such as "game" or "sporting rights" appear. Public opinion is now much more in favour of protection of birds and mammals rather than the landowners’ interests.
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