Hello 👋,
The European Badger is a native species to the UK. They have probably existed here for millennia, and are the UK's largest land-based predators. They are omnivorous, eating mostly earthworms. They will also eat insects, slugs, fruits and small mammals like mice, rats, rabbits, frogs, toads and even hedgehogs! They will also take advantage of animal carcasses. They live in woodland, farmland, towns and gardens. They are generally seen more out in the countryside. These powerful creatures look nothing like any other UK mammal, and even look like pandas!
Badgers are well-loved by the UK public. They are also protected by law, meaning that you or I couldn't legally harm or kill them.
However, despite outrage from animal rights activists and conservationists, they are still culled regularly by the government, resulting in thousands of these poor animals being shot to death. This is all supposably to control TB in cattle. This is despite the fact that the largest ever study conducted to see if culling badgers would reduce TB in cattle concluding that "badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain." A letter signed by 31 eminent scientists in October 2012 described the cull as a "costly distraction".
A vaccine has now been found for bovine TB. Slaughtering thousands of innocent badgers to "protect" cattle in order to then exploit and abuse them for profit and then send them to slaughter is a hugely un-ethical, cruel practice and a huge waste of time and money. Why not simply make the vaccine free to all farmers and legally require that all dairy farmers have their cattle vaccinated against this disease?
Badgers are a native wild animal and our largest remaining land-based predator - why are we slaughtering them? This is like a throwback to the times when the poor wolves and bears were killed off by humans!
Our ecosystem needs badgers far, far more than it needs dairy farming!!! We need to prioritise animal rights and the environment far more than profits!!!
PLEASE immediately stop ALL badger culling in the UK RIGHT NOW!!!!
