Select Committee on Environmental Audit Written Evidence


APPENDIX 13

Memorandum from Sett Recorder

BADGERS AND THE LAW

The law is not giving badgers much protection

  Most offences happen without being detected at the time. As a sett recorder who makes hundreds of visits to setts, I see the signs of dug setts at many sites. Those caught in the act represent the tip of the iceberg, yet even when they are caught they often evade conviction or are convicted but given lenient sentences.

  This leaves badgers vulnerable to future persecution. For example:

  1.  In Gwynedd, North Wales men doing "fox control" were found at a badger sett with dogs, one of which had badger hairs in its mouth. They boasted about their experience over the years yet they were acquitted because the sett was not an obvious one! A badger is a large animal and produces unmistakeable field signs! This appears to me to be a blatant miscarriage of justice and since then more setts have been attacked in Gwynedd.

  Sending dogs underground should be an offence—foxes, badgers and dogs are known to die of suffocation due to collapses during underground scuffles and battles. Fox destruction groups have used bulldozers (Shooting Times and Shooting News) to "rescue" dogs—or more usually their carcasses!

  2.  After the sounds of dogs baiting a badger at a dug sett, near Bylchau police were called out but were refused entry by the land owner. No action was taken and the badger population has declined around this part of North East Wales due to illegal persecution. Details available.

  3.  Last year near Mold a farmer pleaded guilty to pouring diesel down a sett. He was not fined, only had to pay costs.

  Badgers are still protected by law?

April 2004




 
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