*** Sabs attend Game Fair as government remove restrictions on festivals * Hound forced into ring after running off in the heat ***

It wasn’t quite Download or Boomtown, but as we were able to get ourselves a couple of tickets we thought we should probably check out the famous 3-day event that is Game Fair. Held at Ragley Hall in Warwickshire, just down the road from us, it’s a fair which has been going for many years and attracts a lot of people from the shooting and hunting communities, as well as others.

Camping for a few nights, as opposed to just trying to get in for a few hours, meant that not only were we less suspicious, but also got to make some friends, share a bunch of stories and overhear a lot of drunk conversations we wouldn’t otherwise be privy to on a regular day out. We missed out on the excitement of the Lapada incident which kicked off the event, a couple of vehicles of masked guys raiding the place to rob it, as we were drinking with some buddies and musing about culling squirrels. Lapada have a relatively new partnership with Game Fair (let’s see if that lasts, they didn’t seem happy) and showcase antiques, including fine art and furniture. There were a fair number of fights and arguments over the weekend to make it feel like a real summer festival.

Hounds were being shown and hunts promoted, despite the commentary explaining to the audience that the hounds’ coats are much less forgiving in the summer heat than they are when hunting over the winter. The hound pictured was still forced to be shown, however, being leashed and pulled back into the ring when they ran out. Meanwhile intel was being gathered elsewhere.

Some good pictures and recordings to go through now we’re chilling back at home. Jen* and Sam* would like to thank the fair for a great weekend and for being far easier to get into for free than any music festival, we may come again in future!

We’re already out in the fields fighting the supplementary badger culls in Gloucestershire and will be fighting the intensive culls, plus cubhunting meets, in around 4 weeks time. If you’d like to help us out financially, our link is paypal.me/threecountiessabs Funding isn’t the only way you can help us – intel, shares of posts, research and getting out there yourselves to check setts, etc all add up!

This has just been sent to us. Please send polite objections to Weston Sub Edge Parish Council.

Mole Traps in Weston-Sub-Edge Village Green.

We were absolutely outraged to find whilst out for a walk recently, that the village green and playing field in Weston Sub Edge had been covered with mole-killing scissor traps.

The mole traps were either individually marked with a small stick, or in clusters taped off in a small circle. Not only is it disgusting that the council seem to have decided to kill moles, but it’s also extremely reckless and dangerous to set these scissor traps in a children’s play area. A child could have very easily pulled the traps out of the ground and snapped their fingers off. There were no deterrents or warnings and some of the traps were right next to the basketball hoops.

Why on earth are the parish council killing moles, and why do they think it’s acceptable to set these traps in an area where children play? We’ve noticed in the most recent Parish Council meeting minutes (23/02/21) that mole hills are regarded an “ongoing issue”, and in previous minutes, Councillor Mike Jelley has noted “mole problems” or the need to “monitor moles” when carrying out inspections of the recreation grounds. However, nowhere is it recorded that there are plans to kill the moles. Where and when was this decision made, and by whom?

What exactly is the problem with mole hills anyway? They don’t cause anyone any harm, and no-one cares if there are a few mounds of earth in a playing field. But we certainly do care about our wildlife and think it’s deplorable that the Parish Council should kill moles just for making mole hills.

We have emailed the parish clerk (wseparishclerk@gmail.com) to ask them why they are killing moles and hope to raise the issue in the next council meeting (29th June), which anyone can attend online on Microsoft Teams. We hope other people in the area can do the same and also keep an eye on the recreation ground and other public areas to make sure our wildlife isn’t being killed or dangerous traps left in areas where children play.

Within Gloucestershire zone 9 (North Cots) bait points and a rectangular dug-out area were found deep within a wood by some locals recently one evening. Another group then found a cage in the exact same spot just an hour later.

Similar stuff is happening in zone 1 (West Glos). Taking cages away in the morning, then putting them back in the evening? Preparing an area then slapping a cage down just before dusk? We’ve known that happen before, in the first few years of the cull, though only in one localised area. Cage-trappers are taking extraordinary measures to keep on killing, trying to avoid our daytime checks. Unfortunately for them, especially as many autonomous groups work in areas local to them, it’s not just during the day that people are checking on setts.

Meanwhile, we’re out checking setts across zones 1 and 9 today (and, cull operatives beware, into the night). Help support our work if you can – PayPal.me/threecountiessabs

Gloucestershire Badger Office wrote the following post regarding changes to the way that culling has taken place over the past few years:

Due to the determination of anti-cull people in the Gloucestershire zones over the last 8 years(!) we have seen a number of obvious changes in the ways in which cullers operate. From cage-trapping playing a much bigger role than anticipated in a cull originally designed partially to test the effectiveness of shooting ‘free-running badgers’ from the very first year onwards, to moving cages and bait points much further away from targeted setts (making them somewhat less effective) to slapping cages down set and ready to trap*, we’ve documented so many ‘evolutions’ over this period.

*normally cull operatives would bait an area initially, then place down a cage, but tie it open in order to get badgers used to the change in their environment and not view it as a threat. After a week or so the cage would then be set and be ready to trap. As this meant the cage was at greater risk of being spotted / monitored we saw areas being baited for a few days and then cages suddenly appearing on a morning or early afternoon, ready to trap. Still lethal, though less effective than the methods the operatives would prefer to use.

In 2013 there was one local area where an operative was taking cages away from a sett in the mornings and returning them in the evenings, but considering the workload involved, the numbers of cages used in some zones and the fact that badgers won’t be as trusting of a cage which has just suddenly appeared in their territory as opposed to hanging around, non-threatening, for several days or weeks, it’s not a tactic employed by large numbers of cullers.

And yet, earlier this week, an area was checked one evening and bait points were found next to a ‘prepared’ area which suggested a cage might be put down at a future point. Locals checked the area just an hour later, to get a feel for the place for future checks, and a cage had already been put down. Cullers seem to think that our sett checks only happen during the day, but as autonomous groups and individuals often check areas local to them, checks can happen whenever someone is free, day or night.

Support our work if you can – PayPal.me/badgerwelfare – and give us a shout if you need advice on tackling badger persecution in your own area or would like to come help around Gloucestershire

It is with great sadness to hear that Ann Burley passed away last week after a year-long battle with motor neurone disease. Ann bravely came to Gloucestershire to protect badgers and spent many days and nights in the cull zones, sett surveying, seeing off shooters and being a reliable and courageous badger protector. she fought against the evils of vivisection and was a SHACtivist and often at the demonstrations against the Oxford laboratories with SPEAK. She was always there to protect animals and help other activists.

When Three Counties sabs needed a vehicle she supplied one Ann was known for her infectious smile, cheerful disposition and caring nature towards animals and people. She will be greatly missed by all her friends. She has campaigned for many decades against animal abuse and exploitation. Ann was often seen at national and local demos demonstrating against live exports, the cruel fur trade, animal experimentation, compassion in world farming, the badger cull, fox hunting and in more recent years the cruel puppy farming trade. Ann was 72.

Although we have not posted for a while, much sett checking / surveying / mooching about and office-based stuff has been going on. Yesterday on Sunday 18th April 2021 a sab came across some lads (one of whom hunts with the Croome & West Warwickshire Hunt) shooting pigeons and crows from behind a hide near Dumbleton. They had put out plastic decoy birds to attract the real birds to their deaths.

A long and civil discussion ensued, they immediately broke their guns, and they said that the birds were eating all the wheat seed that had been sown. It was then a matter of looking up the law on licenses for shooting, which took some time to ascertain. Eventually they packed up and no more birds were shot. The saddest thing is that not only did 16 birds lose their lives, but they may well have young who will now starve.

We have added a new table to our article ‘Hunts vs Badgers‘ which shows the sett-blocking incidents, marking to ground, dig-outs and historic blocking which was discovered during the 2020 – 2021 season. A combination of police work, our own legwork and the season being cut short (as well as disrupted a couple of times) due to Covid-19 lockdowns mean that the numbers of incidents are far lower than in previous seasons. Our work continues against ‘sett crimes’.

Please note that the hunting season runs from May 1st, though hunting itself does not start in this area until late August (cubhunting) with the main season meets starting late October / early November

The bits we found most interesting:

– Johnathon Seed (currently running for Wiltshire Police and Crime Commissioner, and who claimed not to have hunted in the last decade) noted as a Mid-southwest regional coordinator of the group

– one hunt representative stated that they had decided to move with the times as there was too much confusion over whether the aim should be to fight for repealing the Hunting Act or focus on trail hunting. They stated that antis turned up to their meets but stopped when it was clear that they were in fact following trails, going against the popular hunt claim that we sabotage hunts regardless of whether they’re chasing live animals…

– the “discovery of maladministration” and “issues with the MFHA” (Masters of Foxhounds Association) were interesting points, including the taking of £7000 of funds by ‘a colleague’ (including money raised for a child’s memorial) without authorisation

– TiHUK were upset about “being treated with a degree of contempt” by the MFHA who they claim did not think hunting would actually be banned. Lee Peters wanted more transparency from the organisation, Ian Smith accused them of being “too scared” to rebut accusations from sabs and monitors and argued to “forget them and forge on alone”. There was also a feeling of dissent regarding guidelines for how TiHUK should operate, which the MFHA came up with in an earlier meeting in July 2018

– good to know that attendees were feeling disillusioned regarding the extent of effort needed to rebut accusations made against hunts by sabs and monitors – “it would take an office full of full-time people to rebut all the social media attacks on hunting”. Maybe the hunts should just move with the times and, you know, stop breaking laws / stop killing wildlife…

We also like the idea of TiHUK’s new tagline being “promoting the positive side of hunting and the countryside” as it shows that they’re aware that there are negatives and, more importantly, that they would not be discussing or allowing talk of such negatives…

The full document can be viewed at this link: https://huntingleaks.is/this-is-hunting-uk-meeting-minutes-16-9-2018/

Badger cull supplementary zones (zones 1 – West Glos and 9 – North Cots) commenced at the beginning of June ’20. Other zones began in September with 3 new zones starting nearby including Oxfordshire (where we sometimes sab the Old Berks and Heythrop Hunts), a new Herefordshire zone, Warwickshire (including some North Cotswold Hunt country).

Cage trapping continued until 30th November ’20 although some illegally-set cages were found after this time. We suspect that ‘free shooting’ continued for much longer in the two supplementary zones, but this will finish by the latest on 31st January when they have to legally stop.

Several abandoned cages have been found with with foliage growing through them in the interceding months.

As for hunting, our first sab of the season was with the Old Berks on 25th August ’20, within the new Oxfordshire cull zone at Longworth and we walked into a baitpoint full of peanuts whilst out with the hunt. The last sab of this (very short) season was on 30th December ’20, in very icy conditions, with the North Cotswold Hunt.

In total 52 days were spent sabbing hunts (we would normally do double this in a ‘normal’ season) which included visiting meets for the NCH, Croome and West Warwickshire, CVFH, Worcestershire, Cotswold, Ledbury, Heythrop, one day sabbing the Beaufort and one day sabbing the Old Berks.

In a normal hunting season we would be looking at late March / early April before the end of the season, but, with it being exceptionally unlikely that lockdown will start to be lifted in the next few weeks, the season effectively ended on 4th January ’21… twelve weeks early.

Having said that there were many meets over the Christmas / New Year period where they did not seem to turn out, maybe due to the weather and maybe due to Covid.

Syndicate shooting is also affected and the pheasant shooting season finishes on 1st February. In addition to Covid having an effect on the hunts, the HSA also released an expose on hunting webinars which took place over the summer which had many more people questioning whether ‘trail hunting’ ever actually takes place…

We are preparing now for next season, which will start August / September, and the badger cull which will start again in June in supplementary zones 1 and 9. Free shooting has to end legally by 31st January.

This season has been hard for us in different ways to normal, although, despite the fewer days out, it has been a tiring season physically once again. In mid-October one of our sabs (who was also the partner of another sab) was involved in a hit-and-run while working and died in hospital after being in an induced coma for 3 weeks. He is greatly missed, not least by his partner, everyday and his loss is a huge one to the movement fighting against animal exploitation.

Many thanks to our followers who continue to support us, morally, financially, physically, with intel, post shares and so on. It all adds up and it all makes us stronger. With love, 3C

There is a lot of misinformation and disinformation being spread around regarding the badger culls, so we’ve made a few slides in the hope that they clear up a few things…

*** third badger sett blocked by the Croome and West Warwickshire within the last 5 days ***

New Year’s Eve 2020

The Croome and West Warwickshire did not turn up at Peopleton today – a wise decision as the ground was incredibly icy and difficult to walk on. For hound feet and horses’/ponies’ legs it would have been very hard. We struggled, slipping over several times sett checking.

One sett was found to be freshly blocked. It would be very difficult in this weather for badgers to get out. Even with the apparent cancellation, no one had bothered to go back and release them from being entombed.

The Ledbury, The Croome and the Worcestershire hunts will still go out hunting as they are all ‘only’ in tier 3 and all of them block badger setts. Please call us if you see them around – 07891 639803