Some Good News (for a change!)
- Thread starter Broch
- Start date
I am with you all the way on that - it should have been the policy from the start!
I love the fact that our area is rich in badgers - I love tracking them through the woods and fields - and despite being in a "culled" area numbers seem robust
I love the fact that our area is rich in badgers - I love tracking them through the woods and fields - and despite being in a "culled" area numbers seem robust
I like badgers...till they moved in locally and slaughtered all the hedgehogs. Of the two, the hedgehog is having more problems and does less damage.
Not that I have much of a view on culling for TB prevention. I know one local farmer hated that there were so many badgers coming into his pastures from the National Trust land, because of the TB issue, but if vaccination works, all to the good.
Not that I have much of a view on culling for TB prevention. I know one local farmer hated that there were so many badgers coming into his pastures from the National Trust land, because of the TB issue, but if vaccination works, all to the good.
Around us the hedgehogs outnumber badgers most of the time. But even if they didn't, at least that's a natural predator/prey relationship without man's intervention (well, in rural areas, not directly anyway).
From the Badger Trust:
Badgers have been living side by side with hedgehogs for centuries but will occasionally prey on them if their main food sources of worms and grubs are not abundant. Hedgehogs are currently undergoing a sharp decline in rural habitats and unfairly, badgers are often blamed. A 2018 report on hedgehog declines (read here), owed the reduction of rural hedgehogs to mainly habitat loss, through the intensification of agriculture and fewer hedgerows.
Fair play...where my parents live there has been some habitat loss, but it isn't rural, and the badgers have moved into a very suburban location, and last year there were a LOT of prickly jackets in their spoil heaps and long periods of not finding any hedgehog droppings where they were once common nearly every night.
I will be so glad when I won't have to go out protecting them anymore!
Have advocated this vaccination not extermination all along.
Will be some time yet before all the culling is stopped.
Can't realy get my head round the fact they are a protected species yet the government said it's fine to kill them.
I'll probably get shouted down with my view from any dairy farmers, but I have worked on a dairy farm in the past so I do see it from the farmers point of view too. Just could see a better way by vaccination and there was a whole lot of people who would have given their time freely to help vaccinate but still it was "too expensive "
Wonder why it's suddenly become a viable option. ?
(A rhetorical question. I know why. But still suspicious. )
Have advocated this vaccination not extermination all along.
Will be some time yet before all the culling is stopped.
Can't realy get my head round the fact they are a protected species yet the government said it's fine to kill them.
I'll probably get shouted down with my view from any dairy farmers, but I have worked on a dairy farm in the past so I do see it from the farmers point of view too. Just could see a better way by vaccination and there was a whole lot of people who would have given their time freely to help vaccinate but still it was "too expensive "
Wonder why it's suddenly become a viable option. ?
(A rhetorical question. I know why. But still suspicious. )
I had just started typing something similar but got called away to eat.
Being cynical, I do wonder whether the idea that badgers are causing significant harm to hedgehog numbers is down to some farming lobbyists seeking to counter increased resistance to culling by trying to vilify badgers by blaming them for the decline of an animal everyone thinks is cute.
Fair play...where my parents live there has been some habitat loss, but it isn't rural, and the badgers have moved into a very suburban location, and last year there were a LOT of prickly jackets in their spoil heaps and long periods of not finding any hedgehog droppings where they were once common nearly every night.
I’m not saying you are wrong but badgers are scavengers and I’m guessing that the left overs from a hedgehog caught, killed and eaten by a badger would look remarkably similar to those of a hedgehog killed by a car, starvation or natural causes and then eaten.
Wouldn't be suprised at all if that was true.
Anyonewho knows anything about badgers know that they occasionally eat hedgehogs and even been known to have the odd chicken or eggs.
Part of natural behavior.
Nobody seems to worry about them eating slugs or worms!
