Is A Badger A Collie Dog?

It does not help if you are involved in wildlife work or rescue and people try to lead you on wild goose chases. Two people forwarded this to me yesterday evening concerned that it was out in the day and reported as "very agitated". A third person asked whether it was AI as they were far from sure the report was genuine.

Firstly, there are no signs of AI. The scene is lit up by street lights.  

 

I have a large data base of badger photographs and videos (but nowhere near as extensive as the fox archive) and a handy tool to identify images. It took 30 seconds to identify this 'Bristol' image.    

Credit states: ""Badgers are becoming an increasingly common site in Britain's towns and cities, where they both forage and establish their setts. It remains unclear whether badgers actively choose urban areas for their homesteads, or if they fail to move when we build around them. - Credit: Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire & Rutland Badger Group"

That check, confirmed by also using an online image check, saved the person who was going to check from wasting time and fuel and searching around a large area.

I have not included the poster's name in case they really are that daft that they do not know the difference between a collie dog and badger but I suspect a hoax.

In the past I have had calls for "injured fox lying out by the road" which turned out to be a fluffy toy (we know who perpetrated that hoax) and we have even had photos sent of foxes at different locations- more hoaxes using stuffed foxes.

In the time wasted on hoaxes some injured animal could be found and treated or taken to a vet to be put out of pain. The fact that drivers in the City and County drive into foxes, badgers, deer and otters and do not even stop or report what has happened is bad enough but that people in the area think it is funny top waste our time with jokes and hoaxes shows the disregard there is toward wildlife.

It is not a joke.

 

Another badger Death in Long Ashton: the Second in a Week

 

Above: the second badger in a week killed in Long Ashton -and with cub season looming this raises concerns.

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.

Who?? Where?

 To answer the question of who views this blog (apparently the Badger Trust can't see us 😂 here are the all time stats:

United States

770

United Kingdom

370

Singapore

355

Hong Kong

156

Germany

100

Ireland

84

Canada

75

Sweden

61

Mexico

54

Vietnam

41

Brazil

26

Spain

24

France

24

Finland

21

India

18

Netherlands

10

Argentina

8

Austria

6

Australia

6

Other

178

On When We Stop Registering Badger Deaths in Bristol.

 

Re the Foxes and Badgers Death Registers (now combined).

The rule we go by is that we take all dead badgers and list them up to 30/31 December. We then add any late reports but by mid-January stop since by them the data analysis etc is completed and would need to be totally re-written if even one report was added.

The fact that no one is interested in the data posted means a 1 or 2 day re-write is not worth the time and effort. How many of the 364 members have read the published badger death results or even the fox deaths results?

Most views are from outside the UK which is strange -or shows more interest in badgers outside the UK?

Do I Use Google Maps to Plot Sett Locations?

map showing 2022 fox death locations

 I was asked whether I use Google maps to plot locations of badger setts as "it's an handy tool".

The answer is no. Google maps may be saved as "private" but it is far from that. Allow me to explain. When we carried out the Bristol Fox Deaths Study - https://terryhoopernaturalist.blogspot.com/2026/01/results-from-bristol-fox-deaths-and.html- we used a Google map set to private. There were just two people with access to that map and yet, in the space of two days, over 50 views were recorded. 

It made no sense that a private map under the Google terms had so many views. According to Google the maps you make are private unless you share a link. We did not.  Somewhere and somehow persons not allowed to view the maps were seeing them. I stopped using Google maps after an extra 25 views were recorded in one day.

As far as I am concerned animal safety is paramount. If I cannot guarantee 100% privacy on locations I am not using any internet tool.  Before the internet I started out with index cards and a good quality road map top plot locations etc of other animals. I still use the map and index cards -no one sees them if I do not want them to.  

If I give someone my word that a location will remain private then I stick by that. Since 1977 I have never broken that promise to anyone and I intend to keep those promises.

What happens to the information once I slip this mortal coil?  I have someone to pass it all along to. Avon Wildlife Trust will certainly not get a hold of it. the Bristol Regional Environmental Records Centre (BRERC) will not get them. Both organisations have been asked for assistance in the past and the Trust has failed to respond on every occasion. BRERC considers  (I apologise for the ego but I need to quote others) "a noted naturalist" with n international reputation not worthy of seeing any records kept -remember that I was a UK police forces wildlife consultant from 1977-2018 and a m,ember of the Partnership Against Wildlife Crime but that, it seems is not enough to make me trustworthy.

So Index cards and map it will remain and after I am gone it is up to the successor what they do.

Badger Deaths 2026 updated

 I have just recorded the 7th and 8th (reported) badger deaths today. The latest was found in a back garden and thought to be a pet cat.  One of the local Lost and Found Pets people went out with a scanner to check for a chip and saw it was a badger.

above: not a cat but a badger (c)2026 respective copyright owner

Sadly, badgers and foxes often go unreported as people assume they are pet cats. Makes no sense but that's humans.

Bristol Wildlife Rescue