Redmarley badger baiters caught red handed

 

In the run up to badger culls, it’s important especially in the week before to keep an eye on badger setts to see if they are being pre-baited in preparation for the cull. Last weekend two anti-cull activists were doing exactly that when they came across a gang of badger baiters.

 

The long handled shovels they’d been using to dig deep holes into the sett were quickly thrown to the floor, before the four men, described as having local accents, picked up the terriers that they had planned to use and ran off into the surrounding maize field.

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Police were immediately called and a police helicopter was on the scene within minutes, quickly followed by a number of officers on foot, which included sniffer dogs in an attempt to track down the wildlife criminals.

 

One of the men had been seen and overheard using a mobile phone and with the use of the tracking dogs it became apparent that the men had fled to a nearby layby and been picked up, the police dogs carried on searching and soon came across a pair of men in a nearby field who were armed with guns.

 

These two shooters are thought not to be linked to the badger baiters as they did have legitimate permissions from the farmer a Mr. Malcolm Stallard. It wasn’t long before Mr.Stallard turned up, his response to being told that there had been badger baiters attacking a sett on his land was perphaps predictable, he accused the activists of digging the hole.

 

The police don’t appear to be holding the same view as the farmer and a full scale criminal investigation is now underway, with evidence left at the scene and the baiters using a mobile phone at the location, we hope it shouldn’t be long until arrests are made.

footage from the sett, taken last year
Jay Tiernan spokesperson for the campaign group “Stop the Cull” said:

 

Time and again we find incidents of badger persecution inside the badger cull zones; snaring, blocked setts, badger baiting, poisoning, shootings have all been found and reported to the police over the last three years.

We call on the National Farmers Union and specifically all the badger cull organisers to make a public statement condemning illegal badger persecution, if they do not, we must assume that they are complicit in these crimes and should be treated accordingly.