Anyone who has been following our work for some time will know that we are no strangers to dealing with crimes involving badger setts. We were one of the first sab groups to really focus on the targeting of badger setts by fox hunts, we surveyed for them outside of the cull zones, as well as within the zones, we conducted early-morning sett-blocking patrols prior to hunt meets, and recorded huge amounts of data which resulted in one local police force taking the situation more seriously and led to somewhat decreased incidents of sett-blocking and of dig-outs taking place at setts. We are writing this article not because sett-blocking has become uncommon here making this incident newsworthy, nor because there is more prevalence of crimes involving setts in this area* but because Clarkson has been so outspoken in his hatred for badgers, using his own TV series as a means to spread disinformation about the animals he refers to as “ghastly“.

*that said, we have certainly seen a decrease in sett-blocking within the Gloucestershire parts of Heythrop Hunt country, where Gloucestershire Constabulary has put more effort into dealing with incidents, whereas setts carry on being blocked more regularly in Heythrop Hunt areas outside of the Gloucestershire borders, and in areas where we are believed to have less information on sett locations, or where we are believed to be able to check on setts less frequently

Having found blocked setts on land owned by Jeremy Clarkson on 25th January and then again on 20th February 2024, The Telegraph picked up on the situation, with the Mail Online and Metro soon reporting on it too. We were asked for further comment by other media outlets, and The Mirror followed suit, with The Times then published an article including additional comments from Clarkson. Clarkson had been in the media just over a week previously, talking about how police had turned up at his place to ask him about the setts found tampered with in January ’24, and he’s in the media again now that the setts have been attacked once more.

“I’ve shot all the badgers on the farm so why would I want to fill in their setts?”

Clarkson reckons that this is the “perfect excuse” as to why he wouldn’t block setts on his land, having signed up to the badger cull in order to kill the badgers living there. The active (and very obviously tampered-with) setts present on land near to his farm prove otherwise, showing that badgers are indeed still present, although we never accused him specifically of blocking the setts himself. According to a Mail Online article published today, he said in one of his TV episodes that “Because I’ve got all this lot [presumably the cameras, attention, etc.] I can’t…quietly break the law’“

“We are not picking on Clarkson. Instead we are trying to protect badgers from being persecuted and killed” states one member of our core team, Lynn Sawyer, in the Telegraph article. And it’s true – there are hundreds of setts which we keep eyes on, and setts on Clarkson’s land are just a handful of them. For more information on our work on badger sett blocking (and other sett-related offences) you can check out our article, updated yearly with new data, Hunts vs. Badgers.

“Jeremy Clarkson has shrugged off hunt saboteurs who reported him… saying he was unconcerned by the views of ‘people who live in basements with their mothers'” reports the Times. You can read the response from the mother of one of our sabs here.

“It’s the first time in a while that I thought I would be seriously hurt if they caught up with me” another of our core team says about the day she first found a sett on land near Clarkson’s farm in December of 2022.

“There were at least two quadbikes out, two lads on each, pissed off that I had managed to dodge them and keep eyes on the hunt for much of the day – normally they try to have ‘stalkers’ with us at all times, to radio our position back to the hunt, let them know if we’ve got foxes on camera so that they can call hounds back and claim they must have accidentally left the false scent trail (that we’ve never seen any evidence of them laying), and to make noise to try to prevent foxes from running in our direction”.

“I knew I had heard hounds speaking inland and believed they were marking to ground – where a fox has escaped into an earth, sett, drain, or similar – and so I made my way to where I had heard them, knowing that hunt staff would want to stop me finding any evidence. The sett I came across had hound paw prints on the entrances, the hunt had been there, but there was no dig-out in progress. Knowing that I was in the area, not knowing if I was putting cameras up or not, would likely have protected that sett that night, stopping anyone from returning to dig into it to try to get to a hiding fox. At one point the lads were just a few metres from me, looking for me as the light faded, anger in their voices as they searched for me”.

Just over a year later Lynn entered the same bit of land, knowing that she had heard hounds marking to ground once more, heading for the sett location which had been noted down in December ’22. There were hound paw prints on the entrances again, but not as many as she had expected to find, so she searched further, finding another large, active sett nearby. The entrances were all blocked, save one, paw prints all over the spoil heaps. “It was clear to me that a fox had gone to ground here, hounds marking at this sett. As always, it was reported to the police, and to the Badger Trust, and the entrances were unblocked so that badgers, and fox, could get out more easily. Badgers are fantastic diggers, but they usually dig from outside, throwing soil out of the tunnels they are creating – if they have to dig their way out from inside a tunnel they risk getting trapped with soil either side of them. Of course it’s also much harder to dig your way in or out of a sett when it has been blocked with boulders!”

“It’s always no”

In an article by Protect The Wild in February 2023 Clarkson’s TV series is mentioned. In one episode from season 2, he apparently speaks with his farming advisor about badgers, being told that, no, you can’t just shoot them, you can’t gas them, and, no, you can’t “fill in their holes“. The farming advisor then says he has a friend who ‘deals with’ badgers at night on his land… Clarkson has no excuse – he knows it’s illegal to block badger setts and he has had his land surveyed for badger setts, all evidenced by his own TV program, and yet blocked setts keep being found on his land. And even if he hasn’t tampered with them himself, he has allowed “the idiots who charge around the countryside on horses” (his words, not ours – we actually have a fairly polite relationship with the Heythrop Hunt normally) to operate on his land – surely he might notice that damage has been caused to the setts following their attendance?

Don’t let that last quote mislead you by the way – Clarkson is certainly not a fan of foxes either, Horse & Hound magazine mentioning that he once horrified viewers of ‘Have I Got News For You?’ by talking about how he likes to run foxes over. He has previously supported the Heythrop Hunt financially, his beer brand being a main sponsor of their Point-to-Point races, important events in the hunting calendar which draw in huge amounts of money for hunts each year. He has also supported other hunting events, from shoots, to hosting the National Basset Hunting Day.

“It’s terrifying these days when you’re accused of something you haven’t done”

The Irish Times mention in an article that Clarkson rarely gives interviews, quoting him as saying “you inevitably say something stupid”… but Clarkson seems to be perfectly happy to say ‘stupid’ (read: misleading, ignorant, disingenuous) things when it is someone other than him who will be harmed by what has been said. After he was recently visited by the police, following the blocked sett being found in January, he also claimed that’s it is terrifying to be accused of something you haven’t done, and that he risked becoming a social outcast due to the accusations. And yet he will put others at risk of much worse by the wild and outrageous claims that he makes about them.

Back in 2021 the Badger Trust wrote an open letter to Clarkson over his “shocking misunderstanding of a serious cattle disease and absolute derision for the plight of badgers”. They offered to meet with him to educate him. We highly doubt he ever took up that offer. From suggesting that badgers have eaten huge numbers of hedgehogs, to being seemingly unwilling to understand that the majority of bTB cases are cow-to-cow transmission, with insufficient biosecurity measures causing huge issues for cows (and therefore farmers) he seems to be either wilfully ignorant or intentionally misleading others. Protect The Wild state that “The scapegoating of badgers is handy for farmers. They can go about business as usual without having to question their farming practices”.

Clarkson equally seems to love being melodramatic about those who are against the persecution of badgers, stating that “If you say ‘I’m going to shoot a badger’, you can expect to find your house on fire within 10 minutes”. His hypocrisy is unmissable, but he speaks so confidently even when he is wrong that people listen to him. As Protect The Wild wrote, “Dangerous propaganda will contribute to extinction“.

It is no different for foxes, with Clarkson being happy to use melodramatic, immature, and emotive language to demonise them for simply trying to survive just like the badgers.

“The fox is not a little orange puppy dog with doe eyes and a waggly tail. It’s a disease-ridden wolf with the morals of a psychopath and the teeth of a great white shark”.

A hunt convicted of illegal hunting, led by a huntsman with previous convictions for hunting and blocking badger setts, hunting on land belonging to someone who openly hates foxes and badgers. What a team!

The Heythrop Hunt, the foxhunt which uses Clarkson’s land were charged with hunting offences and convicted in 2012, throwing two of their members, Richard Sumner and Julian Barnfield, under the bus after the RSPCA took on a case against them. Evidence had been gathered for the case by independent monitors, including members of POWA and members of groups such as our own. One of our sabs was held in a headlock by a hunt member at one point – the hunt were very keen not to be caught illegally hunting!

[Julian, it should also be noted, went on to work for the Hunting Office (the role of the Office now being taken over by the British Hound Sports Association in some strange attempt at rebranding following the Mark Hankinson case and the leaked hunting webinars). He was the only person to show up in support of John ‘Ollie’ Finnegan when Finnegan pleaded guilty to illegal hunting offences having been caught at a joint meet with the Ledbury Hunt by members of Three Counties Sabs and Herefordshire Hunt Sabs. It’s interesting that they would hire someone who had previous convictions for illegal hunting…]

The Heythrop Hunt’s current huntsman, Chris Woodward, is no stranger to such court cases himself, having been convicted a number of times of illegal hunting, and of blocking badger setts. Despite Heythrop hunt staff trying hard to hold on to an improved reputation that they believe they have built for themselves, we have filmed the hunt blatantly hunting on numerous occasions since their court case, including since Woodward took over as huntsman.

Sett unblocking Heythrop (youtube.com)

This is all just the tip of the iceberg, but our work in the fields has already meant a decrease in the number of setts being tampered with. Help us to continue what we do by sharing our posts, raising awareness, keeping those tip-offs coming in and, if you can afford to, chucking us a few quid towards fuel and equipment costs (we rely entirely on your donations and our own money!)

Thank you to the Hunt Saboteurs Association for assisting us with proving land ownership for where the setts are located on Clarkson’s land, and for helping us to get this into the press!

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