For those who have supported ourselves and Gloucestershire Badger Office over the years, this will not come as a surprise unfortunately.
Despite often sabbing in small numbers, we have large ‘pool’ of people who we work alongside – other hunt sabs and monitors, sett-checkers, cull sabs, locals who gather intel, etc. This is the reality of rural sab groups: ability to attend several hunt meets a week, smaller groups of sabs, larger number of active locals within the hunt areas.
We called on our contacts in the West Gloucestershire cull area this week after the Ledbury Hunt hunted around the Forthampton Estate on Friday. On Monday at 23.59 the badger cull should have come to an end, after 4 years of intensive culling as one of the pilot zones and 5 years of supplementary culling. But that doesn’t mean badgers are safe. It also doesn’t mean that we let our guards down.
“I had a gut feeling about one of the setts, even though it hasn’t been blocked for several years. When I checked it there were obvious signs that a dig-out had taken place earlier in the day. I unblocked several entrances to make it safe for foxes to escape into and badgers to get out. If any survived” — 3C sab at Friday’s hunt meet.
Four further setts were found blocked that day, one of which easily had 25 – 30 blocked entrances as it is such a large sett.
Today we heard back from some of the local cull sabs and sett-checkers who had done further checks in the area:
“The big sett at ****** was totally blocked, 41 holes in total that I unblocked, then 34 holes were also blocked at sett behind ******”.
Regardless of who is to blame for these wildlife crimes (the hunt? Terriermen? Tenant farmers? Forthampton Estate? Their gamekeepers? A mix?) we will carry on checking setts, putting up secret cameras, doing sett-blocking patrols and reporting all incidents. If you would like to support our work or the work of those who we work alongside, like and share our page and posts and, if you can, chuck us a few quid towards fuel and equipment via PayPal.me/threecountiessabs Also let us know if you would like more info on how you can also get involved in protecting wildlife in your area.
