We have just recorded the 16th dead badger in the City and County of Bristol.
Two dead ones at the wildlife death blackspot of Hick's Gate have been joined by a third one today. Bristol City Council refuses to look at that particular stretch of road as a location for a wildlife crossing over or under. It says it would cost money but it really has no interest in wildlife or the environment.
All we can do is record the deaths and just wait for the Hick's Gate Clan to be completely wiped out.
Every year there are several requests per month from people claiming to be students at various universities who want to film or photograph badgers and foxes in situ. Every single request is rejected and they should be. Today this message went out to Bristol groups:
"Hi! I am a student at Falmouth university currently doing a project on foxes and how the perception of them in society is conflicted- I aim to take some images of foxes in bristol, if anyone has any information on where they may be/ knows anyone who does i would be incredibly grateful! wanting to visit next week if anyone could help!"
There is a profile photo on the Face Book page for this person and it cannot be positively identified as belonging to the poster. There are no FB posts, photos or info and FB warns that this is a sign of a fake account. Every request has similar lack of info.
What is annoying is that a member of the Bristol Foxes and Badgers group immediately responded giving full location of year round active fox sites in an area.
There are people who look for this type of information and actively go out every night to shoot foxes for 'fun' (they like to call themselves 'sportsmen/women'. It is also coming up to cubbing season for badgers and foxes .
Badgers or foxes: if you know where they are keep quiet!!
Here are the facts. What we know about badgers today is through modern badger watchers. My old hero Ernest Neal have found quoted dogma. Every zoologist and naturalist reads Neal and his quotes (even if paraphrased) are everywhere.
I was still surprised reading a piece by a zoologist just last week that stated "we have no idea how foxes and badgers interact if they meet at night" -which is a quote often used but never attributed to anyone. In fact, field naturalists, badger watchers and fox watchers have known how they do/don't interact since at least the 1980s (likely further back than that just never recorded in (published) print). Badgers setts can be found in gardens alongside fox dens. Two people who have observed the badgers and foxes on their property for more than three decades note the two species sharing a sett -probably the fox using a now no longer badger used section.
There is even a report noting how a fox hunted in the 19th century ran into a badger sett where the badger "backed up" the fox until both were killed. The account is almost written as though this was a "known thing".
The question Neal and others since, basically because it seems that they preferred dogma to actual reading and historical research, have never answered is how wild cats never survived felicide campaigns; the Old foxes never survived vulpicide campaigns and neither did otters, polecats, hares, red squirrels and other species -the modern day extinction of the 1860s was fueled by hunting for 'fun' and profit. Luckily, these animals were all importable from Europe in their thousands (hence why the species tested all tend to have European species DNA).
But as badgers were subject to continuous melecide that wiped them out in large areas and I can find no information on badger imports how did they survive?
That answer is simple to come by and one I may feature in a post at some point.
All we know about foxes and badgers first appeared in Thomas Pennants 1771 book British Zoology. Some of this was reprinted in Thomas Bewick's History of Quadrupeds, 1790; Bingley's History of British Quadrupeds, 1809 and etc. etc. etc. This 'borrowing' from Pennant and Bewick continued on into the late 19th century after which, species being extinct which meant no one could see or hunt them, it was easier to jump to modern (1900 onward) dogma.
The Old fox types never existed despite the volumes of records of them as well as taxidermies because someone in 1970 had never seen one because by that time they had been extinct 100 years. When was the last time a naturalist/zoologist saw a living Dodo? They have not therefore the bird did not exist. Oh, they have the taxidermies, written descriptions and accounts ? Exactly my point. We have the same for the Old type foxes -so why is all of that ignored? No money in it likely and people who can quote dogma as fact rather than get their backside off a chair or away from a free lunch.
All we know about British wildlife, its extinction, re-introduction, re-extinction and reintroduction comes from hunting literature. The noble naturalist gathered information because that was useful in their hunting for 'sport' and specimen collecting. The every day, all year round life cycle was basically: where are the foxes; protect them until cubbing season then kill the cubs with hounds for 'fun' (you got a special invite to the 'fun'); after that leave the foxes left to roam free because that meant when hunting season started the foxes could give longer chases and how long a chase lasted was as important, if not more so, than being in at the kill.
That was it.
And now we see hedgehogs, badgers and other species, including the fox, heading for man made extinction once more. "A nation of animal lovers" is a chocolate box myth.
As the word is getting around again more badger deaths reported. Sadly, we have no one who can carry out post mortem examinations so each death has to be classed as RTA (road traffic accident) -even though we are aware people illegally killing badgers dump carcasses by the roadside so anyone even mildly curious thinks "car hit it".
Also, a couple new expansion setts in the City and County noted so we know there are over 50 in the area now. Many are kept very quiet even from ourselves as people protect them and hide their presence.
Yesterday I had to record the 10th badger death in Bristol. Had it not been for someone chancing onto a Face Book post we would not have known about it.
It was another badger killed in Long Ashton at the usual back-spot for these deaths.
Although badgers are well known at the location Long Ashton Parish Council and the six "environmental concerned" Parish Councillors I contacted as well as the Secretary for LAPC have refused to discuss the matter or the impact new development will have on the badgers -money talks over the environment it seems.
Back in the 1970s I spoke to police officers who used to be on the patrols in ands around Long Ashton going back to the 1960s. They all told me how they carried a "badger bar" in the boot of the patrol car. This "badger bar" was a length of heavy lead pipe and was used to "despatch" any badger (or even occasional deer that had been struck by a vehicle. Vets were few and far between back then and they would not come out to deal with wildlife, therefore, the officer in the patrol car had to do the work.
One thing noted was that previous serving police officers had been aware of badger activity in Long Ashton and the Ashton Court estate going back to the 1940s.
The one consistent thing about Long Ashton Parish Council going back to my dealings with them in the late 1980s/1990s was that they had no interest in the badgers at all -if badgers were crossing the road and got hit by a car; so what? As one rather obnoxious councillor put it when responding to me; "They shouldn't cross the road should they?"
With development being planned all past surveys showing badgers, bats and even otters in recent years, being ignored it looks as though neither Bristol City Council nor Long Ashton Parish Council have the slightest interest in protecting any species -and this under a Green controlled BCC and (as noted) an 'environmentally concerned" LAPC.
To answer the question of who views this blog (apparently the Badger Trust can't see us 😂 here are the all time stats:
We have just recorded the 16th dead badger in the City and County of Bristol. Two dead ones at the wildlife death blackspot of Hick's ...
