A Wild Summit To Achieve....?

 

I need to apologise to Bristol Fox Lady/Bristol Wildlife Rescue Sarah Millsfor dragging her to the so called Wild Summit. I printed out a small fortune (in ink) flyers and info packs to hand out.

Avon Wildlife Trust ("We work through Bristol City Council") were not interested in the fox and badger data. In fact, no one was interested in mammals whether otters, badgers, foxes (plenty of fox photos used though) or even hedgehogs. Bees, butterflies, wild flowers, water purity and conservation nd that was it.

Fella from the Badger Trust talking about setting up a Bristol Badger Group (8 times right next to me) so I jumped in every time and pointed out that I have run BBG since 1994/1995 but he kept it up and told me to my face he had heard of my fox work but not badger work. How good is the Badger Trust when they have had emails etc off me for 30 years and been told repeatedly over the last year there was a BBG? Kept trying to talk over me every time I was amking points based on years of research and work. Nope. Well not be cooperating wityh him or BT.

So making the countryside wild friendly but no one interested in wildlife crossings/tunnels.

Basically it was badly organised and had I paid £240 for a ticket there would have been trouble.

Oh West England .Wildlife Index was not that good. Their data was a mess they noted bird decline (mentioned 8 times as frightening) no idea about mammal decline or fish decline and then they told us how their data was basically not worth much as it needed another 5 years. I think Sarah probably heard my loud grunt as the woman in charge stated "We get data from naturalists but take it with a grain of salt" Talk about insulting the dying breed of people who go out getting the real data and muddied boots. I stopped myself from standing and walking out. I did feel sorry for one of the volunteers who stepped up to exp-lain the work she had been doing but got four heckles of "stand closer to the microphone" and she was nervous enough.

The RSPCA Senior scientific advisor stodd up and I just waited for her to say the great job the RSPCA does for wildlife but in the few minutes she spoke all I learnt was her field of work was tigers. Yes, foxes and badgers and British wildlife are silly so concentrate on ovrseas wildlife (which I am told the RSPCA is doing?!)

The ex copper who said we need better organisation, etc and some forces had no wildlife crime officer well...back into the early 2000s there were plenty of good PWLOs and senior officers were involved. Now we have a situations wth four wildlife crimes in the Bristol area (including a snared otter) and a fox torn up by a dog under the command of its owner and....nothing. We had three foxes found in one day on an allotment and the Wildlife officer visited the site and made notes and was offered the foxes to take (THAT should be standard) but he would not even go and look at the foxes and his notes ("intelligence") was it. THREE suspicious death foxes and the copper would not even look at them. Interestingly a PCSO did a better job and bagged up two foxes and a cat in a suspicious death case and submitted them for post mortems. Obviously the part time policeman had a better grasp of the job than the full time professional.

At times with 'quizzes", stickers, big sheets of paper and colour pens I felt I was back at Glenfrome Road nursery school.

Radio talks the event up well but there was NOTHING to the event just "We need to jolly well show the government by sending in a petition".

I do not likke rudeness or bad manners but that was also very evident at the event.

Basically an online petition appears to have been what was needed for most talks. That a great deal of the information was old -I have sources saying the same f thing from the 1980s and that was built on from 1970s work,

Field or any type of naturalist did not seem to be present. After a remark that anything from a naturalist was taken "with a pinch of salt" that was lucky.

I left thinking that I had lost two hours or so of my rapidly decling life anjd that working by myself seems the best way to go.

I was lucky that Sarah Mills was present as even she commented "Nothing on mammals? Not even hedgehogs!"

Maybe I should have had a table there to push mammals?

Badger 84 -and advice to those finding dead badgers

 "Hi Terry, sadly there’s a deceased badger on the side of the road in the above location. It’s a little dicey to retrieve as there’s no pavement on that side of the road. Would it be possible to let me know what to do? I feel so sorry for it’s little body just lying on the side of a busy road"

As we are blocked from submitting badgers for post mortem "due to Health and Safety bTB concerns" (while PMs are carried out on other badgers) our advice is to leave badgers where they are if on a very busy road since we do not want anyone attempting to move a dead badger and getting hit by a vehicle. If by the side of the road"let nature take its course".

My THANKS to the person who made the report.

And....Dead Badger Number 82 (known)

 Dead badger on the B1333 congresbury road

I don't think wildlife crossing signs would help as motorists know there is wildlife crossing those roads but...

Numbers 80 and 81

080             Friday 14 087 2026  Dead badger at the bottom of  Stockwood Hill

081             Tuesday 18 08 2026  Dead badger , A4174 southbound ( yet again ), just past Dramways Roundabout

Latest fatalities

 

078           Monday 10 08 2026 Dead badger adult on A38 near sidcot Bristol road

079           Monday 10 08 2026 No cub is in langford

How many times have I written this?

 

How many times have I written this?

That people on my own groups need telling again shows the 'interest'.

I am not in any way connected with the Badger Trust. I set up the Bristol Badger Group in 1994 after the Avon Badger Group folded and there was no one, including the RSPCA, willing to deal with calls regarding badgers.

Since 1994 I have on over a dozen occasions sought assistance from the Trust over badger territory/setts at risk of destruction. On not one single occasion was the Trust interested because it is not a get off your ass and do something body.

Had I not intervened then Bristol would now be minus 20 badger setts/territories and even last year I was advising and pro-active in dealing with proposals to sell off and develop old badger territories. It earned me the anger and backlash from Bristol City Council and despite all of that I find the Trust trying to set up a Trust group in Bristol for those interested in badgers BECAUSE I would not pay an annual fee to be on their list.

We have a capable wildlife rescuer who has dealt with badger call outs -otherwise badgers would simply have been ignored.

What is galling is that members oin this and Bristol Foxes and Badgers are donating to a national group with no local interest while BBG struggles alongwith money from my pocket (which is meagre at best).

I do not do the work for publicity or to make money I do it for the wildlife but all of it is reported on here or at Foxes and Badgers where occasionally someone says "Oh. Right." and goes back blankly to ,,,,whatever.

I really feel like I have wasted my life trying to help wildlife and the environment in Bristol. And, even more annoying, the "Where are you from originally?" is insulting. I was born and grew up in Bristol.

Badger Post Mortems -We Need To KNOW Why A Badger Has Died (a lot of cover up going on)

 

The fella who used to run the Avon Badger Group (ceased 1993) used to carry out his own post mortem examinations on badgers and write up reports. BRERC tell us they returned all the files (to a dead man and requested after he died!). The last surviving member of the group has told me she will "proudly" take everything to the grave with her.

So everything up until I set up BBG in 1994 is lost (or hidden at a certain centre).

I trioed repeatedly to get dead badgers necropsied (PMs) from the Bristol area but was told that "badgers cannot be post mortem examined at the pathology lab due to H&S regulations" ('fear' of bTB).

That was an out and out lie because at the same timne I was told that badgers were being necropsied there. And since.

It was a fight to get the fox necropsies and we know that ended with my being threatened with legal action( and the pathologiost personbally got a solicitor to try to close down my publishing business!) if I dared issue the final report (as was agreed on).

Natural England, Bristol University Post Mortem Services, Langford Veterinary School and others were all sent copies of the threats and actions taken against me. It was all sent agin a couple weeks later. Not even a response which very strongly suggests they approved of what was being done.,

So I was barred from ever submitting any wildlife again -even if it was a possible corpse indicating a virus opr disease. They were looking at hedgehog deaths: I was forbidden from submitting the two I had found.

They did (Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme) dance around the fact that three foxes killed by ingesting poison were down to Bristol City Council's rodenticides. But it was easy to find out.

In this type of atmosphere and institutioonalised attitude the likelihood of having badgers PM'd in the local area yet alone nationally is not likely.

Go ask the badger trust about PMs of suspicious death badgers and watch them stutter and blurt out all the copy and paste material they can find online -I asked repeatedly over the years. No idea where all their money goes.

We are literally fighting tooth and nail in this country for anything to do with surveying wildlife health -the situation is better even in Third World countries!