The Fox Deaths Project and Final Report

 

photo (c)2024 respective copyright owner

I know people are waiting as this is the first fox post mortem project of its kind in the UK and the results from over 60 foxes submitted to the Bristol Fox Deaths Project will be published this year. 

The problem is that when you are involved in an underfunded project getting all the tests our pathologist wants carried out can be slow. Do not misunderstand me; we have a top pathologist with over three decades of experience and the Animal Plant Health Agency, PM Services, etc., have not put any blocks on the work and have been more than helpful. As a result the  Wildlife Network for Disease Surveillance are getting some very interesting data and Natural England is getting to see what is going on regarding fox health.

The Project would not have worked had it not been for volunteers as I do not drive.  Emily Finnegan was involved in the early days before withdrawing and Zoe Webber stepped in until early 2023.  The Bristol Fox Lady, Sarah Mills then stepped in adding to her workload. It is important that these volunteers are recognised for what they did and in the early days there was hinderance from Bristol City Council and even others supposedly involved in wildlife rescue faking and reporting dead foxes (no, I never worked out the mind set of those morons either).

When the report does get published, and I really want it to be this year, it will offer a basis from which rescues and vets can work from and some of them will find their statements that adenovirus and canine hepatitis are all to blame for certain fox deaths shot down.  As with people saying every dead fox "was poisoned" and a similar statement from vets, no one can say what a fox died from until tests and a post mortem have been conducted.

Fox health and death are far from simple and facial injury cases as well as three legged foxes are far from rare.

We need DNA testing

 Since first posting this in July, 2023, I have had absolutely no interest shown by any lab carrying out DNA work. We have clearly identified Old fox types as well as Old wild cat types in the Extinct Fox and Wild Cat Museum going back to the 1830s so one might have thought it would be an excellent opportunity to carry out work that would re-write wildlife history in the UK -good publicity and a paper in it.

When I write "no interest shown" I mean that the project proposal was received by the labs but they chose to not even respond.  Sadly, for wildlife work, despite what you might hear, the UK is not the place to be. Considering that any findings might also reflect on European foxes and wild cats I did consider the possibility of contacting European labs working in DNA but I do wonder whether there would be the same reaction.

As there is absolutely no funding available to have DNA testing carried out we are at a limbo stage: we have the research and we have specimens of the animals but the next step of DNA testing is beyond our means.

____________________________________________________________________

 The main question asked by some may be "Why are you so keen to have DNA work carried out?  That question requires a very long answer and really there is no space here, however, both Red Papers (Canid and Felid) put forward the need for DNA testing.

The map below shows the Doggerland connection made what is today the British Isles and Ireland part of Continental Europe. Prior to the flooding of the area humans and wildlife could move freely around. Once that land bridge flooded what was here was here and had to develop to the habitats on an island.

Once Ireland separated from Britain its wildlife and people also had to develop to the isolated environment.

Normally, it is assumed that large animals would develop "island dwarfism" so that they are smaller and fit into their environment better. This is looking at mainland Britain (before tribal then national boundaries) as though it is a very small, cramped place which is a mistake many tend to make.

Britain had ancient woodlands and forests which, despite modern claims, we have not restored.  Most forests these days get planted for one thing only -commercial timber. Back in time forests would have been the habitat of many animals and amongst those would have been wolves and there were plenty of prey species such as boar, deer, rabbits and so on.

Above: some areas we now know were the territories of the large Old British Greyhound/Mountain fox. This is currently being updated.

Wolves in Britain and Ireland were not affected by island dwarfism and the few remains studied shows that Old wolves on the two islands were large -in fact arctic wolf like in size. this was why the Irish bred the much acclaimed Irish wolf hounds so that they were large and fast enough to deal with wolves.

Forests were cut down and burnt simply to drive out wolves to kill/hunt and not simply for agriculture. It has to be accepted that people of that time were very destructive (not much changes) and to try to cleanse what was done by stating it was all for "agricultural development" is crass. Any other animals in the forests were driven out so also "good sport" (for the lords who demanded that some wolves be left alive for their 'enjoyment') or killed to claim financial bounties.

The few wolf remains that still exist have, as far as I can ascertain from museums, never been DNA tested -dated, yes, but no DNA samples. Wolves when killed were usually beheaded for decoration purposes or, commercially (and there was a massive trade of wolf skins coming from Ireland to England) the bodies were skinned and remains thrown into wolf pits of which there are many in England but none have been excavated which means that, where land not built over, there are literally thousands of wolf bones that would help in research.

Was the British-Irish wolf sub-species of the arctic wolf ? If the Irish wolf was separated from Britain it would also be a unique island species. It would be interesting and, natural history wise, important to find out.

We then have the British wild cat which, like the wolf, fox and badger were hunted for 'fun' and bounty profit. The evidence is that wild cats lasted longer in England and Wales than is believed with some very 'authoritative' inaccurate dates given for the species extinction. Hybrids in taxidermy are not that rare and if you have a hybrid then somewhere there had to be a genuine wild cat.

Zoologists and naturalists in Scotland were very clear in 1897 that the true Scottish wild cat had died out in the 1860s and this is backed up by taxidermy as well as other authoritative contemporary accounts including by the man who was the expert on wild cats at that time after 40 plus years of study.  

Even the specimens from the 1830s were not the true wild cat, or original wild cat, as for thousands of years the species had only been kept alive by inter-breeding with feral domestics with the best date for the start of this being the Roman period in Britain. The 1834 pair of wild cats shot by John Colquhoun and others for that period are themselves hybrids and unless we can find bones of pre-Roman period wild cat bones (unlikely?) we will never know true wild cat DNA. However, we do know that they had maintained their large size (dwarfing the current wild tabby) in some areas -including Wales in the late 19th century.

DNA testing would answer a lot of questions and possibly show which cat species the British wild cats interbred with (my hypothesis is that originally domesticated African wild cats).  We know that, despite the statements to the contrary, there was an Irish wild cat and they were seen and recorded by Irish naturalists. At some point European wild cats were introduced to Britain and even, based on testimony, Ireland. We do know that they were released into hunting areas to "repopulate" an area. Again, Red Paper Felids covers this in more detail. 

Then we come to the foxes. There was, mainly during the late 18th but more intensely during the 19th century, polite but angry notes and comments that the three types of foxes in Britain -the Greyhound/mountain, Mastiff and Cur- were not three different species but different types of foxes. Well, at the time some zoologists and naturalists believed that foxes and domestic foxes could mate. There was none of the technical knowledge we have today; if someone claimed in 2023 to have a genuine fox-domestic dog hybrid a simple DNA test would reveal the truth. Very few if any people were arguing that the three types of Old foxes were different species.

Some argued that mountain/greyhound foxes had certain areas it lived and survived in. There was food, water and plenty of areas to raise cubs in. It is now known after over four decades of study that the Mountain/Greyhound fox literally filled in the niche taken up in Europe by jackal and in the United States by the coyote. It was large and may have moved around in a way similar to coyotes. Today we would say that this fox had undergone adaption to live  in the environment it chose.

The same is true of the Mastiff  which may also have been known as Hill foxes which adapted to living on the hills and mountain slopes and only venturing down into lower land in bad winters when food was scarce.  The small cur fox had a symbiotic relationship with humans -the old food and waste dumped near villages and towns provided food discarded as well as food attracted -rats and mice.

Each of the types had undergone environmental adaption until their eventual extinction in, again, the 1860s (though a few very isolated Old foxes may have clung on a little longer in inaccessible areas) along with the Old red squirrel and other species. Even the famous naturalist-'sportsman' John Colquhoun realised and later wrote in his books that fauna he had killed off along with others were gone and he was very saddened by this.

DNA on these foxes would likely come back as Vulpes (same species) but of a unique island species.  With Ireland we have a problem. Firstly, we have found no examples of pre-1830s mountain fox taxidermy. There are probably some somewhere but people just do not know what they have and museums tend to have post 1900 foxes only. The second problem is that masters of various British hunts sent gift mountain foxes to Ireland for hunting. It would be necessary to eliminate which taxidermy (if we ever find any) was pre-imported mountain foxes and which were native to Ireland.

We know that certain areas of Ireland (I refer to the entire island not "Northern Ireland or Eire) were regarded as mountain fox territory and the locations crop up in many accounts of the time in newspapers and journals.

DNA could help answer questions.  Where DNA testing in modern times has been carried out in England the results are of European red fox. Really, the expensive testing is negated because it is a matter of public knowledge from the 1700s up to the early 1900s that thousands of foxes were imported from Europe each year to be sent to fox hunting territories and after at least four centuries it would be near impossible to not find European vulpes DNA. It has to be remembered that fur farms, etc., also release North America Red Foxes (NARF) and the traits from these are clearly seen in photographs of UK foxes today.

(c)2023 British Fox Study. Taken from the UK photo data base this fox has probably got North American Red Fox DNA and was of quite large size.

Just as we find European red squirrel DNA in British squirrels, certain deer and other 'native' animals it is because, having been wiped out and there being a need to continue the 'sport', thousands were caught in Europe and imported to the UK. The 17, 18th and 19th centuries saw a huge trade in importing animals both European as well as exotic from Asia, Africa and so on. Importing foxes, wild cats, etc was no problem; shorter journey, less expenditure on food and keep and straight off the ship and sold on.

Therefore we need to get much older examples of foxes and the older the wild cat specimen the better. We know where there are rare Old wolf remains so a DNA preliminary study ought to give us a lot of answers and then all the British wild life books will need to be re-written and dogma itself become extinct.

A ramble I know but I hope it explains why I keep saying and writing that we need DNA testing.

The Red Papers: Background and Authenticity of Research

 For those who wonder these are not "fringe" books. I set up the British Fox Study (renamed in 2022 as the British Fox and Wild Canid Study) in 1977. I was a UK police forces wildlife consultant from 1977 to 2015 and still occasionally. Along with Bristol University Post Mortem Services, the Animal Plant Health Agency and Wildlife Network for Disease Surveillance I set up the Bristol Fox Deaths Project in which certain criteria of fox deaths are investigated by post mortem examination. I have also cooperated with non UK organisations on wild canid health as well as tracking the history of European "Island cats" .

All of the books are extensively researched and fully referenced so that, if anyone chooses to, they may be peer reviewed. Nothing is "claimed" but stated as facts based on contemporary records and books/publications from the 18th century to 21st.  To back up the facts there are also photographs of very rare taxidermy from the early 19th century as well as of later hybrid wild cats -similar for Old fox types.

As someone who was introduced to natural history and wildlife by learned people some of the discoveries I made were more than a shock as they went against everything I learnt but the facts were undeniable.

The Canids book is the culmination o0f work from 1977-2022 and the Felids book 1980-2022.

The Red Paper 2022 Volume I: Foxes, Jackals, Wolves, Coyotes and Wild Dogs of the United Kingdom and Ireland

361 pp

Paperback

Interior Color & Black and white

Dimensions A4 (8.27 x 11.69 in / 210 x 297 mm

£25.00

https://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper/the-red-paper-2022-volume-1-canids/paperback/product-r97ywj.html?

 When the Doggerland bridge flooded the British Isles became separated from

Continental Europe and its wildlife developed uniquely. The British Isles, for the purpose of this work includes Ireland, and isolated the wolves on both became what would be island species not affected by the usual island dwarfism. These wolves, after millennia. Became “unwanted” and forests and woodland was burnt down or cut down for the specific purpose of lupicide; the killing of every and any wolf –and there was a bounty for “a job well done”.

At the same time there also developed three unique island species of Old fox from the coyote-like Mountain or Greyhound fox, the slightly smaller but robustly built Mastiff or Bulldog fox and the smaller Common or Cur fox –the latter like today’s red foxes had a symbiotic relationship with humans.

These canids were mainly ignored until it was decided that they could provide fur and meat and those things earn money. From that point onward, especially after all other game had been killed off, the fox faced what writers over the centuries referred to as vulpicide –extermination through bounties paid, trapping or hunting and despite all the hunters noting that the Old foxes were nearing extinction they continued to hunt until by the late 1880s the Old were gone and replaced by the New –foxes imported by the thousands every year for the ‘sport’ of fox hunting and this importation also led the the UK seeing the appearance of mange (unknown before the importations).

The travelling British sportsmen went coyote, wolf and jackal hunting and on returning to England wanted to bring a taste of this to “the good old country”. Wolves, jackals and coyotes were set up in hunting territories from where they could learn the lay of the land and provide good sport later. Some hunts even attempted to cross-breed foxes, jackals and Coyotes.

Then there were the legendary –almost mythical– “beasts”; the black beast of Edale, the killer canids of Cavan and the “girt dog” of Ennerdale.

In more recent times raccoon dogs and arctic foxes have appeared in the UK; some released for ‘sport’ while others are exotic escapees long since established in the countryside.

The Red Paper 2022 Volume II: Wild Cats, Feral and New Native Species

226 pp

Paperback

Interior Color and Black and white

Dimensions  A4 (8.27 x 11.69 in / 210 x 297 mm)

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In 1896 Scottish naturalists and zoologists declared that the true Scottish wild cat had become extinct by the 1860s. What we see today is nothing more than a wild tabby cat. In this work the true history and destruction of wild cats from England, Wales (where hybrids clung on into the 1940s) and Scotland is explored and after decades of research the true look of the wild cat is revealed.

The "English Tiger" and "Highland Tiger" truly lived up to that name.

Dogma is finally thrown out.

There is also a look at the "New Native Cats" ranging from Asian Golden Cats, Lynx, Puma and others and the evidence leading to their being so designated.

No silly press or media stories just solid facts backed up by evidence.

The author acted as an exotic species wildlife consultant to UK police forces from 1977-2015 as well as cooperated with university projects on the subject.

Island cats as well as feral cats their lifestyles and problems mare also covered .

Fully referenced and including maps, illustrations and very rare photographs -some never before seen in print- make this a book for amateur naturalists and zoologists.

Labour Party Betrayal of Voters As Badger Culls to Continue

 The earliest badger remains found in Britain date back to circa 250,000 years, while remains found in a cave system near Cheddar date back to 60,000 years ago. Badgers are known as one of the fastest digging (faster than even a fox) animals in the world. Setts can be hundreds of years old with many having been occupied for many generations; and one in Derbyshire is even mentioned in the Domesday Book.

There are many urban badger populations due to the fact that villages used to have local badger setts and as cities have grown, Bristol being a good example, so those villages become part of (districts in) the City. Cars do take their toll on badgers and The Bristol Badger Deaths Register tries to record as many of these as are reported. Apart from a small number of mild mange cases badgers appear to be doing well though there are natural illnesses.

Although rarely eaten today in the United States, definitely not in the United Kingdom badgers were once a primary meat source for the diets of Native Americans and European colonists. Various body parts were also used in ‘medicines’ and the hides used for clothing and shield coverings and Scottish sporrans also used badger fur. The badger was not unique in being killed for fur and meat as the fox also shared that fate -in some areas of France fox meat was still being eaten into the late 19^th century.

From a book on the uses of animals:Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden, BPL 1283 (Herbarius/De medicamentis ex animalibus), folio 53r

The badger was also killed for ‘fun’ later on and the German Dachshund was bred to hunt badgers. Hunts at one time trail-dragged using a badger or domestic cat they had killed with the hopes that the smell of the blood would later be followed by an inquisitive fox. In baiting the badgers teeth would be smashed or its lower jaw severed to allow the dogs a good attack and kill while providing the badger with no way to defend itself.

At one point badgers (like otters, polecats and other mammals) were wiped out in the North of England and with local parishes offering what at the time was good money to kill adult and cub badgers it was a very profitable pastime.

In A vertebrate fauna of Lakeland : including Cumberland and Westmorland with Lancashire north of the sands by Hugh Alexander MacPherson, 1892, there is a section headed The Destruction Of Wild Animals and he write:

“Badger

“Under the title of ‘Brock,’ this interesting but ill-used animal figures in the lists of the victims of our hill-men with tolerable frequency, though the Kendal tale of slaughter is at present unsurpassed. There are certain holes on Orton Scar known as ‘ Pate holes.’ The elder Gough offered the comment a century ago, that ‘ Pate’ was an obsolete name for the Badger. After searching many folios of parish accounts, often difficult to decipher, I have at last discovered this name in one of the books of Penrith parish. It occurs as far back as the year 1658: ‘payed for Killinge a ffoxx £00, 02s, 06d. payed for killinge of two paytes, £00, 02s. 00d.’ The irony of fate compels me to withdraw an unlucky remark, made on p, 42, that 1741 is the first date at which I have found the name of ‘ Badger’ applied to Meles taxus in Lakeland.’ It appears to have been first recognised locally towards the close of the seventeenth century.

“The Dacre parish book contains an entry,

‘To Lancelot Holme of Penerath [Penrith] for Killing of a badger, £00, 00s. 06d.’ This payment was registered in 1690.

“Seven years later, in 1697, the Penrith wardens made an entry of their own:

‘To John Salkeld for a Badger Head, £0, Os. 6d.’

“The Barton parish book includes an entry made for the Chepelry of Martindale in 1706:

‘To Mich. Tyson and Tho. Cookson for killing of two wild Cats and a badger, £0, 3s. Od.’

“In 1715 an entry occurs in the Barton parish book:

‘To Lord Lonsdale’s Huntsman for a badgher, £0, 1s. Od.’

“In the Dacre parish the word ‘Brock’ continued to be used in preference to the term ‘ Badger’ for the first few years of the eighteenth century, a remark that is equally true of Barton; but the modern term soon supplanted the older synonym. The records of Badgers butchered in Dacre parish between 1685 and 1750, a period of sixty-five years, yields a total mortality of thirty six individuals, This includes an entry for the year 1736, in which the chronicler records the death of ten of these harmless creatures in a single year.

“Perhaps the saddest feature of this exterminating policy lies in the fact that no mercy was shown even to the tender young. Among the disbursements of the churchwardens of Dacre for 1694 you may read this shameful entry: ‘Imprimis for 6 Brock heads 4 old and 2 young, £00, 05s. 00d.’ The Barton book is equally guilty in asserting the slaughter of such innocents. In 1731 it records, ‘One old Badger, £00, Ols. 00d., 3 young Badgers £00, Ols. 00d.’ The same thing recurs in 1732 : ‘ 3 ould Badgers, £00, 03s. 00d., 2 young Badgers, £00, 00s. 08d.’ Truly a ‘ pittisome’ affair this !”

McPherson adds a note:

“Professor Skeat says that in Middle English [1200-1460] ‘ this animal had three familiar names, viz., the brock, the gray, and the bawson, but does not seem to have been generally called the badger’ (Dictionary of the English Language, p. 47). He adds that the name is a sort of nickname derived from the Middle English badger or bager=‘a dealer in corn.’ This fanciful origin is verified by the fact that the French equivalent ‘ blaireau’ is derived from the French b/é, corn.”

It is interesting that even the ‘great sportsman’ Sir John Colquhoun described badgers as inoffensive and of no harm -he did, however, as a good father let both of his sons each kill a badger so that they got the fun of it but then banned any badger hunting.

Other historians note how great a job the locals had done in eradicating badgers, wild cats, etc. from the Lakelands/Cumbria. It was all “proud work” and praised. Badger-baiting was not for a gentleman but, if the fox was not about chasing a badger would do. In fact, by the 1860s hunting and bounty work had seen that the old Greyhound, Hill and Cur foxes were extinct as were wild cats and many other species including red squirrels. The 1860s marks the peak period in the “Golden Age of Hunting” and the only way it could continue was with the yearly importation of more foxes (mainly from Europe), red squirrels, deer and so on. Wild cats hybrid or otherwise were also moved around the “shooting areas” where people purchased a licence and expected to get in some ‘fun shooting’ and this we have no just taxidermy evidence of but also contemporary accounts going up to the 1930s.

There were no laws protecting badgers so how was it that the species survived when melecide, like felicide and vulpicide were a daily thing? It always puzzled me and I even looked at the possibility of badgers being imported but so far have come up with no records of this. In fact, the reason why badgers survived I came across quite by accident in 2022 while scouring newspaper archives for Old fox and Old wild cat reports.

Fox hunting, which wiped out the three original Old British fox types and wild cats and also introduced mange to the UK...saved badgers.

The Field - Saturday 15 January 1898 badgers to clean fox dens

“As to mange, it is certainly very rare in the west country, which may be due to the number of badgers who keep the earths clean.”

The fact that badgers shared setts with foxes in some parts we know of from old accounts as there is even a story of a fox darting into a badger sett when hunted and the badger fought the foxes sent down to get it. Having spoiled the hunt’s ‘fun’ badger and fox were killed. Ignoring the silly theory as to how mange starts this 1898 item hints at badgers imported into fox hunt territories to keep fox dens clean going back a good way.

I llustrated Sporting and Dramatic News - Saturday 24 April 1897

The above 1897 article shows that badgers were being caught and sent to areas to prevent mange outbreaks and mainly into woodland where they would establish territories last into the 21^st century.

Hampshire Advertiser - Saturday 27 August 1932

There is no exact location given for the “Island” but Hampshire has Hayling Island or next over the Isle of Wight. The interesting fact here is that it is noted that badgers were again imported but I suspect far from being there to exterminate wasps that the reason was, again, mange control. Although hunts did everything openly amongst “their own” when it came to the press rather than be blamed for a ‘problem’ (ie importing badgers to make foxes healthier to hunt) some other reason was always created.

It is possible, based on the various news snippets and hints by ‘sportsmen’ that the practice of importing badgers into fox hunting territories went back to at least the mid 1850s. And yet, as we note in the 1932 item, a “bit of sport” hunting badgers was still going on. How they became a “plague” of badgers is difficult to see but Australia uses the same term today for any animal it wants to kill off -they are always “a plague of”.

In the UK badgers are supposedly a protected species: 1973 CHAPTER 57.An Act to prohibit, save as permitted under this Act, the taking, injuring or killing of badgers. C3By Criminal Justice Act 1991 (c. 53, SIF 39:1), s.

Also Badgers and badger setts (burrows) are protected under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, in England and Wales.

Badgers survived everything over the centuries and only returned to some areas as part of anti mange action. Protection did not last long as some very flawed ‘science’ quickly made them the scapegoat species (as recognised by other countries) for Bovine TB. In fact from the very outset naturalists were pointing out that bad animal husbandry was to blame for outbreaks; other countries recognised that badgers were not the main source of bTB and any number of wild animals can carry it.

Most people know that from 1977 on (still occasionally) I am an exotics wildlife consultant for UK police forces. In that capacity I had to talk to shooters and game keepers in order to complete reports.

It was via the conversations that I learn all the ins-and-outs of night time shooting. It was also from all of this that made me warn, in the 1990s, that the UK fox population was in decline -in some areas foxes had not been seen for 6-9 months and once any turning up were killed ....no more. I asked how they were making their money then? "Oh, no foxes the rabbit population booms and farmers don't want that so we shoot a ton of them and present them to the farmer who can see we've done our job and we get paid."

I also heard of farmers and estate owners paying "good money to snuff badgers" To which was added "on the quiet though". Now why, if these people knew I worked with police forces would they tell me this? Because they knew private land and no evidence and no one really interested in investigating meant it was all done scot free. There are things that I have heard and been told that concern me.

We are always given the number of 250,000 badgers having been killed in culls and after so many years I doubt that figure. Shooters brag about the cull payments having helped purchase houses and expensive lifestyles. DEFRA:

"1.3 Costs and benefits of extending the current approach to a further 11 intensive culling areas

"Each new cull area is expected to deliver net benefits of between -£0.49 million and -£0.04 million per area, with a central estimate of approximately -£0.16 million. This includes costs accrued over 4 years of culling and benefits accrued over 11 years in line with results from the Randomised Badger Control Trial (RBCT).

"The future costs to UK government are estimated at £0.33 million per area over 4 years.

"Previous versions of the VfM analysis included costs incurred by farmers who are prepared to use their own money to fund culls. These have not been available for this and the previous version of the VfM analysis and are therefore excluded.

"The total monetised benefits are estimated to be around £0.01 million and £0.29 million per area over eleven years, with a central estimate of £0.16 million. This is based on the results of the RBCT."

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bovine-tb-badger-control-policy-value-for-money-analysis/badger-control-policy-value-for-money-analysis-2022

They like to say benefits and give percentages to hide things as officials always do. How much does bovine TB cost the government?

"bTB eradication costs UK taxpayers around £150 million per annum, with additional costs falling to the cattle industry. More information can be found at TB hub - Bovine TB Advice & Tuberculosis Information for Cattle Farmers."

https://aphascience.blog.gov.uk/2023/03/24/tb-day-2023/

One shooter bemoaned the fact that "You get nothing for the nippers (cubs)"

Badgers in the UK are recognised by zoologists across Europe and elsewhere as "scapegoat species". Protected in 1973 and not long after "kill them!" So people are making good money and there is very limited financial burden on the farmer. Remember that badger clans that have been monitored for years with no sign of TB in tests and nowhere near cattle were also slaughtered.   

The figure of 250,000 does not include many cubs -bodies are bagged up and disposed of. Watching the talk online and hearing back from other interested parties I was told by one that "People don't care. The badger huggers would s*** a brick -250k is a laugh!"

So how many seems to be a likely number?

300,000

Which is well over half the badger population in the UK and we have no idea how many cubs because "they don't count". If we consider that an estimated 100,000 die on UK roads then it can be seen that the UK badger population is on its way to extinction -which it avoided after centuries of hunting. Yes, hunting never killed off badgers when they were not protected but as a protected species they are being openly slaughtered.

Now we know that the UK government and politicians in voting farmers pockets have declared badgers are to be eradicated (exterminated) from large areas of England)

Former UK Prime Minister R. Sunak actually declared that he wanted badgers eradicated.

Many voters desperate to see the environment and wildlife, and particularly badgers, saved took the solemn promise of Labour Party leader Keir Starmer and Steve Reed MP and the Labour Party Manifesto that the badger cull was unscientific and would be stopped and alternatives to tackling bTB would be used. Worryingly both Starmer and Reed were smiling and hand-shaking farmers prior to the 2024 General Election. However, their word was in print.

Since the Labour Party was voted into power it, Starmer and Reed have flatly refused to even discuss the badger cull with their voters and even some of their MPs are unhappy with the silence.

When would Labours “unbreakable” Manifesto promise to stop the culls come into force?

Secretary of State for the Environment, Steve Reed MP (Shadow Secretary when he and Starmer made the promise), stated, 

“we're not going to end any of the existing licences, let me be clear on that. We don't want to send sudden shocks into the system.”

Now, just weeks later, it has been revealed that this Labour government has declared its Manifesto promises that got it voted in were simple lies and many suspect that a deal was made with farmers prior to the election. DEFRA is preparing to approve a new Badger cull in Cumbria by issuing yet another culling licence.

We are seeing foxes heading for extinction (again) and badgers along with them. Are the "animal loving British public" seriously just going to sit there and let two more species go extinct like others also on the verge?

Yes.

I called the UK "The Blood Red Island" because it has seen species -birds, mammals, fish- all go extinct and even those brought to the UK to 'reintroduce' the species are being killed off. The Labour Government has to now be seen as pro hunt government; fishing for votes and more has led our wildlife to extinction road and they don't care because they are only in it for the political power and money.

Where are the protests ?Those that are being organised will need every person who really cares about the environment and wildlife conservation to attend if they can. Write to your MP and do not take “Oh, we’ll look into that” as a brush off. Demand that Labour fulfill its promises rather than betray its voters. Email DEFRA to Protest. Email Natural England and protest against the cull. Be a pain in the ass and email daily.

We are now fighting to save the badger an all other endangered species and if we let Starmer and Reed win then by the 2030s badgers and foxes will be extinct except for some urban populations. What happens when they decide to cull town and City badgers on your doorstep?

The Labour Party Lied To Voters: DEFRA Announces More Badger Culls -and hope there are enough badgers to kill

 I so wanted to keep politics out of this blog but Steve Reed MP, Keir Starmer and the Labour Party lied to voters. Say goodbye to badgers.

Keir Starmer and Steve Reed met with farmers before the general election and were all smiles and handshakes. Odd for two men who detested the badger cull and wanted it stopped. 

I believe they, and that means the Labour Party is also tainted, made a deal with farmers for votes and to date both men and the Labour Party has refused to respond to voters asking what is going on.

They cannot stop the culls until 2026 as they are "honouring" contracts. What they mean is that rather than pay out for stopping the cull they are willing to see the 300,000 badgers already killed joined by thousands more if they can find them.

You see DEFRA has given a maximum number to be killed and a much lower number if there are not enough badgers found. That in itself indicates that the badger population is reaching or has reached a point that the Tory government and former Prime Minister Sunak wanted to achieve: the eradication of all badgers. 

We lose thousands each year on the roads. We do not know how many are killed illegally but we know it goes on and not just on private estates.

What I have warned about for the last few years is becoming a reality; eradication of badgers in England.

By the 2030s urban badgers will be all we have left and when that goes down in the history books Reed, Starmer and the Labour Party can be credited with completing the work of the Conservative government'. And lovers of killing animals get enough money to buy the new cars and purchase properties.