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.
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