Innocent Badger

DEFRA still haven’t released the details of the badger cull for this year, instead they have misled people into thinking that the badger culls aren’t going ahead with headlines that the culls have been stopped after Boris Johnsons vegan girlfriend asked him nicely.
The truth is the badger culls are going ahead with as much full on blood lust from the tory party than any other year, a staggering 11 NEW cull zones are going ahead.

The tory government wants to kill 25,428 in these new zones and 37,471 a total of 62,899 across all the zones.
UPDATE,  we forgot to add the supplementary zones where 1,501 are licenced to be killed, making a total of 64,400

We would ask everyone who cares about badgers, to contact the Badger Action Network and find out who their local group is, to support them or even better to go out with them and help put an end to this senseless slaughter.

Jay Tiernan spokesperson for “Stop the Cull” said: The Tory government has sunk to a new low this year, hiding the cull licences and details and not publishing them when the cull starts and instead running a smoke and mirrors campaign of officially cancelling a cull zone at the last minute that they clearly never had any intention of licencing.
11 new cull zones and over 62,000 badgers targeted is the largest scale persecution of badgers that this country has ever seen.
Those involved in the killing of badgers, wether it’s the farmers, the shooters or the people in government should be aware, we the animal lovers of this country are angry and we will not allow this slaughter to take place without disruption and retribution.”

This is the targets for this year in the new zones:

Once again we can see that the MINIMUM number of badgers to be killed in the new zones is 2.69 badgers perKm2. Which is supposed to represent 70% of the badger population.

This is the targets for previous years:

If you would like to help us, we are an entirely voluntary organisation:
HELP STOP THE CULL.

He says he isn’t kiling badgers on his farm, thats very odd, seeing as he is a badger cull director.

He says “science has proved it works” when talking about the badger cull, funny then that a Defra document recently published showed that bTB had gone up by 130% in the original Gloucestershire badger cull zone.

Michael Weaver
Challacombe House
Perranpit Farm
Frampton Cotterell
BS36 2AT
01454 772126
mob: 07980 503997
weaverperrinpit@aol.com

If you’d like to call him or any of the other cull directors, please do consider recording the conversation, send it in to stopthebadgercull@gmail.com and any that get published we will post you an innocent badger enamel badge. If you want to make them funny, go for it!

Download Call Recorder – IntCall for IOS or Android from:
http://www.intcall.info/dlr

It seems this year the badger cull licences which are normally published before or in the case of last year just a day after it started are being withheld. Badger culls have started in a number of zones now but the documents showing the cull zone sizes and numbers of badgers to be killed are not going up on the website. They are normally published on this page:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/bovine-tb-controlling-the-risk-of-bovine-tb-from-badgers

Please send polite letters and make calls to the top people in Natural England, maybe then they will get the message and publish?

37 Belvoir Road, Cambridge. CB4 1JH
https://twitter.com/TonyJuniper

Flat 25, Neville House, 19 Page Street, Westminster, London. SW1P 4JX

Everington Cottage, Everington Hill, Thatcham, Berkshire. RG18 0UD
https://twitter.com/MarianSpain

 

Firstly if you are looking for your nearest group, check in with Badger Action Network and let them know where you are in the country.

This map is a list of all the badger cull directors, they are usually inside a cull zone, but sometimes are just outside. If you can organise demonstrations or surprise home demo’s please do so, the more pressure they face the better. Earlier this year after less than a year Paul Candy threw in the towel and stood down, these “things” can be broken.

Polite phone calls are entirely lawful and searching on google for “request callback” along with mortgage, injury claim, ppi etc and entering their details will all result in many many calls for the badger killers.

If you are doing research and want to find the most likely places where badgers are being killed, then looking on the governments map of bTB breakdowns will usually get good results. When in the fields look for quad bike tracks or vehicle tracks as cages are too heavy to carry far by hand. Inside maize fields is a common place as are hedgerows and small woods.

From the pull down menu in the top right corner of the page on ibtb.co.uk choose “all types” then make sure you click “update map” which is a large blue button just underneath.

Not all dairy farms will be signed up to a badger cull within cull zones, but many are, below is a map with alll registered dairy farms in the country, dated from 1st of Jan 2019, if you find any cattle that are in poor condition then please photograph it and report to the nearest trading standards and also send in to Project Calf on facebook.

If you find a cage, turn it on it’s side and open the door so that the door stays open, then jump on it, holding on to a tree or fence can help you keep your balance, when you have dented the opening a bit, you can then turn it again, the main trick is to make sure the cage door can’t flop back down whilst you jump on it. Check out this video.

Last year a list of all the clients from a firm of accountants called Old Mill was accidentally published, many of their clients have absolutely nothing to do with the badger cull, but we also found that many people who are involved in killing badgers use them, in fact when a new cull company director popped up last week who was replacing Paul Candy, a Mr. David Turner, surprise surprise, he is a client of Old Mill, we suggest using this map to cross reference, if they are on this map AND say the ibtb map AND inside a cull zone then it is highly likely they are involved in the cull.

Of course it isn’t just cattle farmers that hate badgers, the game shooting industry hates them as well, as they predate pheasants, if you are in a cull zone it’s worth checking any game farms, a map of a large number of game farms is below, a number of them have been targetted this year having their birds released which in turn means shoots have no birds to kill.

The next map is locations of shoots registered with the British Game Alliance, they boast of high welfare standards, but birds are frequently kept in conditions that don’t meet the minimum welfare standards. If you are interested in disrupting any shoot have a read of this pdf.

Of course we shouldn’t forget the people who instigated the badger culls, the tory mp’s, this map was created over a year ago and many of the mp’s now hold different positions in government or may have even been kicked out, never the less they all voted for the badger cull and only the MP’s in top positions have much in the way of round the clock security. They are behind the killing of thousands of badgers and only we can bring them to justice. Write them a letter, ring them up, stand outside their houses, let them know what you think.

We will be here until the cull’s end, wether that’s next week or in ten years time. We will never forget the badgers or the people who murder them.

If you’d like to support us financially please consider buying us a cup of coffee for £3, we are an entirely voluntary organisation.

Meet Jono Cooper. Jono is a Vet and son of a dairy and beef farmer based at Manor Farm, Chaddleworth, Newbury.

Jono is organising a badger cull in Berkshire. And we know that if Berkshire is chosen to have a licence this year, Manor Farm will definitely be culling. 

Jono thinks he “has a passion for improving animal health and business productivity through well managed animal husbandry.” 

Unsurprisingly, he goes on to say that he “aims to work with clients to maximise profit and output”.  Profits before evidenced based research.

For someone who claims to be a Vet he doesn’t seem to care about animals very much. In fact his practice focuses on game birds and cows and his customers are as scummy as they come.

Hit this vet where it will hurt – in his pocket. Please spread the word about NorCal Vets and Jono and make sure everyone knows they will be killing badgers if they get the chance. 

fb.com/norcalvetsthame/

01844 260616

01235 429767

Jono Mobile – 07711 923 909

Manor Farm Dairy – 01488 638215

Please don’t go on google and search “request callback” and sign Jono and his vets & dairy farm up for PPI, mortgage advice, injury claims etc.

That would be extremely annoying for the poor chap!

The Sunday Telegraph first broke the story last week that STC had recieved footage of a farmers badger cull meeting, that footage was captured by a newly formed group of experienced investigators “Covert Film Unit”.

The guardian followed up the story yesterday with the revelation that a police officer had referred to badger cull protestors as “idiots”, he also told farmers:
“be alert for trail cameras on set traps. they will set trail cams right. they will make sure your procedures are right. if you find one. give me a call give the officers a call. i’ll come out and get it. they won’t get it back.”

Ironically, we are now working with the police and have handed over all the footage and signed statements as one person appeared to be stealing ammunition at the meeting, we aren’t overly confident of what the outcome will be, but we will pursue it in a professional manner, as we would with any crime commited by badger cullers.

We will be publishing footage on the facebook “Stop the Cull” page from the meeting every few days, there is over 14 hours of it.

If you’d like to support us, a cup of coffee for £3 does really help us, thank you:
Buy Stop the Cull a coffee.

Transcript (“….”was inaudible):

0 is it a hassle to look after….. 
anyway it won’t take long we’re year two … and what I’ll go through it’s common sense…. There we go …
What we went with last year, if you were awake…. to evaluate a potentially threatening situation and choosing the best response. two being create space. i.e. if someone is there move away so that effectively gives you that space between you and them. right er. Not that threatening. 
Observe their body for threats. right again…… if someone shouts you’ve got issues. …

1
get out of the area if you can. ….Locate your exits again. …..if they get your attention..by all means … be polite. if you’re under pressure. be polite . If they’re on your land you might just want to thump them, you can’t. right .Because they’ll be filming you. Just say “you’re on private property, get off my land” withdraw and you’ve left. Communicate only if necessary, again just state to them “you’re on private land” and leave. talk as little as possible. Because they love an argument, they’re very good at arguing. In fact they take control of the situation they get that kind of ….. just tell them they’re on your land and get out of the way. Rising conflict
 recognising escalation and the signs. common sense.
2
….in the pub, Angry non verbal signals. …. aggressive eye contact. Angry facial features. As I said last year, that’s my wife. Increasingly vulgar abusive or threatening language, if we get to that stage ….get out of there if you can. If your personal space is being invaded ….if they come up to you…
Last year. Protesters, what should we do, identifying protesters….. you know different types because of fashions. The high vis vests will stick to public paths, alright, The other idiots

3
were running around last year in balaclavas. … there weren’t many of them…. they won’t cause any problems they’ll just try and stop you ….. keep your distance avoid confrontation if you can. if you’re carrying firearms you should always make them safe at all times….You’re a professional with firearms, you know what you do, there’s nothing more we can say. Now to the point of… validation…situation and mental protesting…. And keep containing emotion up for a long time. …is your first port of call. ….and they rely on that.
… two.you are confronted by protesters who are shouting abuse at you and you feel threatened: what should you do? Not lamp them. Alright. One ensure to remain calm. And ….

4
because they say they face violence and intimidation….do not get into a shouting match with them for obvious reasons. Because ….. they’ll be filming. …put it on the internet. Their supporters will see that … if possible say film them. Because they hate being filmed. You turn up and you’re wearing a cam and you’re filming them they will, their behaviour will differ to if you weren’t filming. if you can be clever, box clever, and erm they won’t have anywhere to go with it…. And leave the area if its safe to do so. Right. when we say safe to do so in your vehicle you’ve got er badgers bagged obviously what they could do they’ll nick it, before you know you’re on the front page of the paper. …. all over the internet…. Badgers found… illegally trapped.

5
…professional.. . you’re being followed to your car by persons you think look like protesters. What should you do? Again if people are following you to your car … will be the ones who .were last year .in balaclavas. poor old … from last year….. in another area round pilton, smashed every day. By these idiots. And thats what they’ll do. Right…….call the police station, say … Balaclavas. Thats the last thing we want. as you say. Report the situation. If you’re not …… immediately state your location, they possibly block you and film your vehicle. as we said last year ….. bin bags… vehicles with cameras inside…. record the vehicles registration. essential … to us, to find out who they are and where they are from. do not take the vehicle to your home address. or location of work for obvious reasons.

6
… a shooter…. take them… is what we’d do last year…. obviously not at speed. keep updating them and await further advice from them. they would be your first port of call and theyll advise you what to do. normally they in that situation they’ll …. all the time think safety. do not get into a confrontation. obviously i keep harping on about it. back round last year that gang they were … they were out, every single day, every single night, they were a bunch of bodies, idiots. not at all …… i call that, i tell you what, some situations they were in i’d have had trouble keeping my hands to myself. ….. be professional about it. …. expectations right, during the cull there are dedicated uniformed police officers working in this area. there area again………

7
…….
at the same time… local officers will be dispateched from places like south molton, tiverton, ….they are all tied up… if it gets that busy and there will be officers there. right, each area has a CLO, myself which you all know from last year anyway. in short with crime and informational reporting to the nfu….. with the police… it’s a problem that people are experiencing …. straight away and that’s not an option.
traps are damaged tends to apply… opportunity. … damaged, should be reported to the nfu. i don’t know off the top of my head how many traps reported last year.

8
bloody black pilot, loads. loads of broken. loads of taken. i know a lot of people even now they’ve given up on traps because they were absolutely targeted last year, and stick to shooting. not every CLO makes …. with reagrds any crimes. going back to what becky said, if you believe a police officer has contacted you, right the only officer who should be contacting you should be me, right. if i’m off duty then another CLO will . if you’re worried about it, put the phone down, text me, we’ll update anyone. i’ll get back to you and find out from jean who’s at work. we had this last year and it was jean. …. be alert for trail cameras on set traps. they will set trail cams right. they will make sure your procedures are right. if you find one. give me a call give the officers a call. i’ll come out and get it. they won’t get it back. f you do have members of the community being adversely affected. again, this is your …

9
.. you can try, put up, shut up. if you see someone struggling struggling with the cull, struggling with the pressure, right, we had this last year . they will highlight that shit, right. don’t let that person suffer. you know what they’re like right. ……. they’re able to… give that person problems. if you see someone suffering… if they’re struggling… welfare and protection of…
all officers will be impartial, open and transparents. they have a duty to facilitate lawful activity, but also to facilitate lawful protest. this was tested last year and we lost. three times we lost in a court. … last year for people who were agravatted tresspass.. and the court threw it out. thids year w’ve … that erm this year gathered that and black pilot this year we will try and we will test it this year and see how we get on. alright.

Huge thanks to the “Covert Film Unit” for their dedication and professionalism, also huge thank you to the people who cleaned up the audio and then transcribed it, it was invaluable for getting the press interest.

Buy Stop the Cull a coffee.

This map of all the members of the British Game Alliance was taken from their public list.

Published several weeks ago, we noted that in this Times article, the BGA in response to an expose said they would be rolling out an audit this summer.
The pressure on the BGA seems to have paid off, with the Brixton Deverill shoot exposed by the HSA recently, now no longer being listed. Furthermore, Bettws Hall which is one of the countries biggest breeders of game birds, is no longer listed as a BGA member, although perhaps no one told them as they still list themselves as being members on their own website, this screenshot taken today the 15th of July.

The British Game Alliance, has been set up specifically to try and create a self regulatory body within the shooting industry. We would encourage everyone to have a good read through of the code of practice for welfare of game birds, perhaps print a copy.
Some of the most common breaches will be a lack of:
“appropriate environmental enrichment”
“Sufficient perching should be provided for the birds, as appropriate to age and species.”

Then have a look round any of the shoots on the map above and see if you can find any breaches, if you do find any, please do email them into us at: stopthebadgercull@gmail.com

If you are interested in sabotaging a shoot before a day of shooting, the one thing that must be remembered is that gamekeepers put huge amounts of energy into keeping large flocks of birds in one small area, usually a number of cover crops, simply pre beating these areas before a shoot means the birds move on and there are far less to be shot on the day. You can read our guide here.

Whilst the game rearing code of conduct isn’t law, it is supposed to be followed, of course most of the industry completely ignores it. Game bird liberations earlier this year from farms had pro-shooting commentators up in arms that the birds were brailed (a band over the wing to stop the birds from flying) yet birds that are brailed shouldn’t be in closed pens according to the code of practice, nor should barren cages be used, yet most raised cages in the UK are barren.
“Barren raised cages for breeding pheasants and small barren cages for breeding partridges should not be used. All laying systems used for the housing of birds should be designed and managed to ensure the welfare of the birds. Any system should be appropriately enriched.”
Proving that the industry is entirely unregulated.
Our game farm map that the shooting industry got so upset about, is also a useful resource if you are looking to make your own inspections:

If you’d like to help us continue our fight against the shooting industry, please consider buying us a cup of coffee: Ko-Fi

“Guinea Fowl liberated from Plumpton College, Game Management Facility, in the early hours of Sunday 2nd June 2019.

These birds have been taken to a safe place far away from the oppressors wishing to profit from selling a chance to shoot these birds in the name of ‘sport’ or ‘conservation’.”

Taken from Biteback.

Then on the 27th of June this was published on Stop the Cull:

The game farm map that was referred too on this report, created quite a lot of concern in the shooting industry when it was first published. The countryside alliance asked all of their members to report the post on facebook, which did result in the post being taken down, however the map is still available for anyone to view and you can find it on this link.

Just days after the partridge liberation this pheasant liberation video surfaced on facebook, filmed by the game farm owner, believed to be in East Sussex:

This report has been recieved:
“We hit a game farm in the South East UK that was breeding pheasants for the shooting industry. We’ve heard since that 9000 birds managed to escape. It was quite an easy job, we sliced through the netting with scissors & stanley knives and rolled it up to avoid birds getting tangled up.
Then we entered the pens and encouraged them to fly off. The sheds were left open and all the heat lamps were disconnected and smashed. The electric fence was also disconnected and then cut so the birds wouldn’t struggle with it.

Fuck the shooting industry.”

Following on from that, just yesterday ANOTHER 20,000 birds reported as being liberated by a game farmer on facebook, report recieved anonymously.

“During the night of Monday a group of us approached a game farm near Pembury, Kent that we had located via the game farm map. The pens were flimsy and breaking by themselves, so we had to be very careful when cutting the chicken wire. We used tin snips to cut through a couple of panels on each pen whilst leaving the frames intact, this was done over a period of time to ensure total safety of the birds as they escaped. We then opened the shed doors and cut through the plastic walls to make as much space as possible for the pheasants to run away. Finally, we walked in a single line to the back of the pen, and making a straight row from the back, we herded the birds slowly to the cut panels. They didn’t hesitate and started flying as soon as they were away from the pens. We then decided to trash the feeders, put the grain away from the pens and in the woods to lead them away from their imprisonment.

The last three pens didn’t have any juvenile pheasants on the runs, but the sheds were crammed with one week old pheasants. Over half of the birds in those sheds were dead, and without water or feed access, we decided the best course of action was to open the doors and let them do as they please. 

Once all the birds had been helped as much as possible, we turned our focus on trashing the farm as much as we could, cutting fencing, chicken wire, electric fences as well as gas pipes after turning the canister valves off. We trashed some of the gas regulators as they are easy to break and expensive to buy. We hope that that farm doesn’t manage to continue and that the shooting season is over for them before it starts. We also hope that people feel inspired, get tooled up and destroy as many game farms as they can, giving a chance to the birds to experience freedom whilst causing huge financial loses to scum with shotguns.

Until all are free. ALF.”

Pheasant chicks dying in large numbers on game farms is not at all unusual. A HSA investigation revealed thousands dying at Bonson Wood Game Farm and this forum post from within the industry confirms that and goes further by naming a game farm that is notorious for high mortality rates. The game farmer in this instance of course took the easy option and immediately blamed the people liberating the birds for killing them, their facebook friends in the shooting industry of course all joined in with a chorus of comments along the lines of
“how could anyone be so cruel?”
This is from the same people who breed and release tens of millions of game birds to be shot and kill any animal they see as a threat to those birds. Their crocodile tears that they assume will be believed by an uneducated public hasn’t gained any traction anywhere beyond their own online echo chamber.

If you would like to support our work publishing these reports, you can buy us a cup of coffee here: ko-fi

This week and every week through April, May, June & July tens of thousands of day old chicks and ready to hatch eggs will travel from French farms to the UK. In total the number will run into the millions. In 2015 it was 15 million, around half of all the game birds released. The ferry companies have now refused to transport live chicks, but continue to transport eggs (except P&O who to their credit have now said they will not transport either).
Eurotunnel are carrying both chicks and hatching eggs, over a week ago they said they were unaware and would investigate, they’ve had a week and they’ve said nothing except “no comment”.
Perhaps when their bosses start to recieve mail at their homes, it may make them reconsider their tardy attitude. Please for the sake of the millions of birds, write to the bosses in the first instance, or even better go and knock on their doors and ask them face to face why they are continuing to take money from French game farmers, who are raising birds in conditions that would be illegal in the UK.

EUROTUNNEL
Jacques Gounon (Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer of the Group)

28 Avenue de l’Espinette Centrale, 1640 Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Belgique. (Address in French.)
Middenhutlaan 28, 1640 Sint-Genesius-Rode, België. (Address in Dutch.)
email: jacques.gounon@eurotunnel.com

François Gauthey (Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Group)

46 Avenue de Suffren, 75015 Paris, France.
tel: +33 (0)1 40 56 91 08

241 Rue Solférino, 59000 Lille, France.

577 Route de Verlincthun, 62830 Carly, France

Whiteways, Stowting, Ashford, Kent.TN25 6BS (house called “whiteways” on the junction of whiteways and Curteis Lane)
Email: jo.willacy@eurotunnel.com

We are still unsure of the position of DFDS, their executives will be added in the next few days.

This Easter Bank Holiday has seen another large release from Heath Hatcheries in Suffolk, 9,000 birds were released, this is on top of 5,000 released from other farms last month. A total now of 14,000 birds.

If the ratio of males to females was 1:8, then 12,250 are female. They will lay 50-60 eggs over the spring/summer season. That’s 612,000-735,000 eggs. If we choose a midway figure that is 673,500 eggs. A game farmer would usually expect to hatch 75% of those eggs.

That’s a total of 505,125 birds that would have been raised and then released onto shooting estates. When people ask if the release of birds from game farms is going to have an impact on the local environment, well yes of course it will, but it is nowhere near the impact that their offspring would have, should they have been produced.

Another question frequently asked on social media is;
How many will survive? The answer to that is simply “very few”.

The game shooting industry has to keep releasing 30-50 million birds a year into the UK  because game birds don’t live for a very long time in the wild, it’s also why game keepers kill every predator they come across to try and keep the numbers of available birds to be shot as high as possible.

This article from the pro shooting organisation GWCT, shows that only 16% of pheasants released on shoots make it to the 1st of February, at that point the shooting season ends and food in feeders is no longer topped up, the birds face the rest of winter without food or water.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that shoots place orders with game farms many many months before purchase, Heath Hatcheries in an expose in 2015 were said to supply “to shoots all over the country”. Imagine if you were one of those shoots relying on thousands of poults to arrive in a few weeks time, you’d now be facing ruin unless you could purchase birds from somewhere else.

The more game farms that are hit, the far greater chance there is of large numbers of shoots going out of business.

Releasing birds from game farms is currently NOT the only method of shutting down hundreds of shoots and preventing birds from being born into the industry. There is also the importation of “hatching eggs” and live chicks into the U.K. from France. Eurotunnel is the last remaining transporter of live chicks, however the vast majority of birds come in as hatching eggs (over 9million in 2015 and we suspect now over 10 million). Please do contact Eurotunnel, DFDS and Brittany Ferries and ask them to take the lead of P&O who no longer transport chicks or hatching eggs. Details here.

The Times reported:

Animal rights activists freed 9,000 pheasants during a raid on a Suffolk game farm as part of a campaign to “dismantle the shooting industry farm by farm, shoot by shoot”.

Members of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) who attacked Heath Hatcheries in Mildenhall said that their aim was to put shoots out of business.

The Times revealed on Saturday how millions of day-old game bird chicks were being sent from French battery farms on Eurotunnel trains to bolster British shooting estates after ferry companies refused to carry the birds.

About half of the 30 million pheasants and six million partridges reared on British game farms are imported as day-old chicks or hatching eggs from Europe, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Eurotunnel is the last remaining company transporting day-old game bird chicks from France to the UK.