Saturday 11th March 2017, Cotswold Hunt Turkdean. We once again joined our friends from Cirencester Illegal Hunt Watch.

It was an early start to check for sett blocking and we found no setts blocked that we checked initially. As can be seen from previous reports this week Turkdean has been besieged by hunts all this week AND this is the North Cotswold cull zone so it was doubly important to keep an eye out for badgers as well as foxes and hares.

Worth thinking about this for a moment re biosecurity and BTB which we are told is so bad that a government sponsored cull needs to take place.

On Tuesday the Heythrop met at Turkdean and blocked at least 6 setts out of those checked. The next day, Wednesday, it was the turn of the Dummer beagles to run around in the exact same area. (nb beagle packs hunt hares and so no need for them to sett block). Today, Saturday, the Cotswold hunt went across exactly the same fields as their mates! 15 setts checked and 2 found to be freshly blocked (by CIHW). One sett had staves rammed down it.

So…. hunts and the spread of btb… hounds eat fallen stock and abbatoir bye products, none of which are tested for btb, they wee and poo wherever they want and the huntsman does not have poo bags. Three packs in the same area within 5 days??? Worth thinking about. Then there are all the horses, the sett blockers not disinfecting their quads and spades (as vaccinators and cullers are obliged by law to do), the terrierboys stood on setts to frighten foxes away from the setts that the police have had words about before. All this in an area that is culling badgers and is home to those who called for the cull in the North Cotswolds in the first place!! This really defies logic.

Anyway, they spent a lot of time trying to avoid us and running away . 2 sabs went into one covert to make sure that the sett was ok and were greeted by 8 masked up terriermen who said that they had been expecting them. Apparently we go out the day before and block setts just to get them into trouble…. hmmmm projection wethinks! Without evidence of them blocking setts they wouldn’t get in trouble, so if we were blocking them, there would be no useful footage of them doing it. Hmm. Not the brightest bunch! The terriermen did at one stage show us what was in the quad, a drag it transpired. Never saw it out of the box though… 2 of the little boys with them saw to fit to spit at one of us which could have gone a bit wrong considering that they were masked up and of course spitting spreads tb…oh dear! They also surrounded one car in an attempt to intimidate.

At Salperton someone blew a whistle (used by some hunts to communicate the sighting of a fox) and they did hunt that one. Otherwise the warm conditions affected scent. They were pretty surrounded all day. They flitted about a bit Turkdean, Aylworth, Salperton and Shipton Oliffe all being visited with us in tow.

Gloucestershire Police are to be thanked for following up with these badger sett interference offences and doing what they can. It was good to see that setts had recovered from being vandalised by the Heythrop.

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